


In Escrow

by manic_intent



Series: Skin Deep [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Other, Slash, eventual puppies, mpreg - technically speaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Same 'verse as Skin Deep, between the final part and the epilogue.  Charles abruptly realizes that he's unable to shift forms after a full moon.  Which can only mean one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: One reason why I timeskipped the last fic is because mpreg is a bit of a squick for me and I've never written it before (I'm the sort of person who starts crying when I have to get an injection, ~~yes, yes, even at my age, ok, it's totally embarrassing when I have to get some sort of immunisation~~ so I can't imagine what a caesarean would be like and so on etc ugh /faint). I guess the mechanism in this 'verse sort of takes that away.

I.

"Charles?" Erik was already tying on his robe, yawning, hungry and exhausted from the full moon and its imperatives, when he realized belatedly that Charles wasn't making a bee-line for the bathroom in the way that his mate usually did once they came out of the shift.

It had been about a quarter of a year since Erik had started living with Charles, and despite his best attempts (and this not all with patience), Charles had retained certain stubbornly _human_ ideas, even when shifted, such as the insistence on voiding himself only when in human form and in his bathroom. Apparently the entire concept of marking territory was 'awfully barbaric' or 'terribly unhygienic', and given that it was entirely awkward attempting to do anything of the sort around the sprawling mansion grounds without Charles staring at him and somehow assuming a look of genteel horror on his wolf features, Erik himself had ended up settling grudgingly for scratches and glandular scent markings.

Frowning, Erik turned around, only to see Charles still in wolf form, next to the bathrobe folded on the chair beside him, wide-eyed and wearing an expression of comical amazement, staring into space. "What _is_ it, Charles," Erik asked, looking around the foyer with narrowed eyes, sniffing at the air. There were no intruders, no other scents other than the Arctus-borrowed housekeeping staff, or at least, nothing that he could sense.

Charles made a yipping sound, sitting down, and Erik sighed. "Change back if you want to ask your bloody _questions_ ," he suggested, his tone curt from weariness from the long night that they had spent under the moon, and then he let out a yelp of pain as Charles growled and bit him smartly on the ankle.

" _Charles!_ " Erik snarled, then the penny finally dropped, as instead of looking apologetic, Charles shot him an accusing look. "Ah. You can't shift back."

Charles couldn't shift back.

They had spent the last hour of the full moon entwined, snuffling and licking at each others' faces and-

Charles _couldn't shift back_.

Charles bared his teeth, then he abruptly lay down with a sobbing moan of despair. "Charles," Erik murmured, as gently as he could, kneeling down and scooping Charles' lupine head into his arms. "This is a normal process, you'll just be a wolf for the whole of-" Erik hastily jerked his head back as Charles growled again and snapped up at him, then the gray wolf let out a deep, slow sigh, rolling to its feet and padding slowly towards the bathroom, tail limp, a picture of utter dejection.

"Charles, I know that you're upset," Erik kept a careful grip on his temper as he followed his mate, "But four months _will_ pass very quickly-" Erik had to hastily step back as Charles rounded on him, teeth bared, "And I'll be by your side throughout it."

The gray wolf stared at him for a long moment, as though measuring him up, then he sighed again and continued trotting towards the bathroom with dragging steps and a tail tucked low between his hind legs. Turning into the tiled room and skidding a little, claws clacking on the polished surface, Charles contemplated the ceramic toilet, blinking, as though another immediate problem had just occurred to him. The gray wolf stared at the toilet seat, then at the roll of paper, then down at his paws, then back up again, and sat down, his ears flicking forward, then back.

"You'll have to do that outside," Erik pointed out helpfully, after at least five minutes had crawled on past.

This time, when Charles bit him, it was hard enough to draw blood and crack bone, but Erik bit down on his stifled yell and knew better than to protest.

By the time Erik had regenerated enough to shift back into his dire wolf form and follow Charles out, worried, Charles was already sullenly returning, somehow managing to seem both deeply indignant and deeply mortified, padding into the bathroom and crawling into the tub, then glowering at Erik until he shifted back to human and obligingly turned on the shower for Charles, washing the dirt and grass off his pelt, kneeling beside the tub even as his mate rested his muzzle over the edge and closed his eyes.

"It's not _that_ bad, is it?" Erik asked, soaping Charles' fur, unable to help but feel amused at the whole situation and Charles' reaction to it, after all. "You're acting as though your world's just ended. This is _normal_ , Charles."

Charles cracked his brilliant blue eyes open briefly to glower at him, but only managed to look depressed, staring blankly into nothing, even when Erik washed himself off and dried them down, standing still on the bathroom mat until Erik shifted into his dire wolf form. Charles tried to ignore him at first, staring pointedly at his paws, but eventually relented when Erik licked at his face and mouthed at his muzzle, touching noses, then rubbing his wet cheek against Erik's scruff, with a low, huffing sigh.

In the living room, Charles settled on his favorite couch, watching as Erik shifted back, pulled on a robe, then located a pen and one of Charles' notebooks. Turning to a fresh page, he held out the pen until Charles managed to balance it in his mouth, scratching the nib awkwardly on the page.

 _Hate you_ , Charles wrote, though he thumped his tail briefly on the couch, then added, _Tea_ , and laboriously underlined it.

"No tea," Erik was fairly sure about this. "And no vegetables either, your current stomach can't process that. I'll arrange for some water and raw beef steak-"

Charles made a moaning, horrified sound, slightly muffled around the pen, and pressed his head to the couch, covering his eyes with his paws. Erik watched, tight-lipped, and now that all the shock and the amusement at Charles' doggedly _human_ reaction had faded, he could only feel a cold sense of self disappointment and guilt.

Charles was very young yet for a werewolf, even though he was an adult, and although Erik had thought that pregnancy was improbable, he had _also_ known how horrified Charles had been of the very concept. Charles, after all, had never been brought up as a werewolf, through no fault of his own; hell, he hadn't even _known_ that his wolf form was female until earlier this year. Erik couldn't claim to understand humans with their unnecessarily intricate peccadilloes and predilections, let alone a werewolf that had been brought up as one, but he _should_ have waited, until Charles was more used to their ways, taken Charles to see his mother's ancestral Pack, perhaps, travelled around the Continent and opened his eyes, given Charles at _least_ half a decade before bringing up the topic again.

 _Gott_ , Erik remembered having to talk Charles out of the _bathroom_ after the first full moon that they'd spent as a pair, in the cold light of the morning when biological imperative had faded and left only probably traumatic memories in its wake. Charles had been more or less reconciled to the concept of wolf-form mating, after the next couple of full moons, but Erik should have had more self-control. He should have _waited_.

"Charles," Erik reached over, stroking fingers gently behind Charles' flattened ears, over the powerful curve of his jaw. "I'm sorry. I should have given you more time. If you truly hate this..." Erik trailed off, uncertain. It wasn't uncommon for werewolf pregnancies to miscarry, particularly after the third month, usually from accidental exposure to too much silver, but he couldn't bring himself to suggest it. Charles was carrying his _pups_.

On the other hand, if Charles hated this, hated _him_ because of this - Erik wasn't sure what would be worse to bear.

Charles abruptly sighed, leaning up to write. _I dont_ , he wrote carefully, the apostrophe dashing awkwardly against the 't', and dotted it instead, conscientiously, then dropped the pen with a snuffling sound of affection when Erik shifted over to encircle his arms tightly around Charles' scruff, his heart hammering in the intensity of his relief. Rational logic told him that it would never be inside Charles' character to even remotely consider the possibility that he had envisaged, but still, deep down, Erik was wildly thankful that as crazy as the entire situation was to Charles, as embarrassing and inconvenient and brain-derailing as it had to be, Charles was going to try and move forward and take it in his stride. For them. For their Pack, for the life that had just begun within him.

The gray wolf nuzzled at him until Erik looked up, then he picked up the pen and underlined _tea_ again, and looked so hopeful that Erik nearly caved.

"No." Erik murmured, cheek pressed against Charles' scruff, fingers twisted in his fur.

 _Tyrant_ , Charles wrote in large block letters, with an aggrieved sigh, and underlined it, though his tail thumped again on the couch, and he dropped the pen, jaws gaping to loll his tongue out in a wolf's silent approximation of amusement when Erik automatically reached over to still the dog-like motion.

1.0.

Erik was usually a very solitary, private person with a wider-than-normal concept of personal space, and prior to what Charles now mentally termed the Unfortunate Incident, tended to keep to himself for most of the day, reading papers or watching television, though usually within one or two rooms away from Charles at the maximum. Attempts to insert himself into Erik's personal space and/or ask questions tended to be ignored or worse, tended to exasperate, and after a few months of overtures Charles learned to recognise when Erik wanted space and when Erik would tolerate conversation.

It wasn't that Erik was _distant_ by any means. Outside of their wolf forms, the sexual aspect of their relationship was more than entirely satisfactory, they shared the same bedchambers, and consciously or not, Erik _did_ obviously try to keep him within sight or at least, within a few minutes' reach. Charles had tested this hypothesis out of curiosity and mischief, once even by sneaking out of the mansion to race off into the woods, crossing over streams to break his trail, crossing back and forth over his scent tracks to throw off pursuit, only to be tracked down an hour or so after by an irritable dire wolf which had no compunctions about nipping him sharply in rebuke.

It was probably just not within Erik's usual nature to be overtly affectionate, and besides, with the main driving force of the last two decades or so of his life dead and buried, occasionally Charles wondered if Erik simply felt... _lost_. Adrift. Bored with his now purposeless life, an ocean away from what was familiar to him. Erik, however, had treated suggestions of travel with brusque dismissal and an invitation to get involved in Charles' research with studied disinterest. Having spent most of his _own_ adult life more or less alone, Charles had been left with few solutions other than to give Erik the space that he seemed to need, and after a while he'd grown comfortably used to their arrangement.

 _Now_ , however, somewhat to his surprise, Charles found himself at the full focus of Erik's attention, all the time. Erik was following him _everywhere_ , even when he went out of the mansion to tend to his bodily functions in the woods, and while at first it was amusing and somewhat gratifying, after a week or so it was beginning to chafe on his nerves.

After two weeks Charles was ready to start trying to climb the bloody _walls_.

Going out of the mansion was now restricted to the immediate garden, with Erik simply using his larger dire wolf bulk to block Charles or herd him back whenever he tried to get too far out into the wilder sections of the woods, and once when Charles had written 'town' and looked hopeful Erik had simply muttered something about it being too _dangerous_ , as though Charles hadn't successfully hidden most of his life within Westchester.

Within the mansion, in wolf form, he couldn't even read a book without a lot of careful page-turning and/or Erik's help, he couldn't proceed with any of his genetics research in the lab he had set up in the east wing, hell, Charles couldn't even _talk_. Depressed, bored and silenced, at once both fascinated and vaguely repulsed at the idea of the life growing within him, Charles took to lying listlessly around the house or in the garden and trying not to look too closely at whatever the housekeepers were feeding him, and if Erik occasionally shot him worried looks, this was all _his_ fault, anyway.

And then, close to the end of the first month, the house was abruptly (in Erik's later words), infested by Arctus.

Judging on how Erik was clearly furious, Emma and Raven had probably blithely ignored Pack protocol by descending upon them, but Charles was too gratified by their presence to care, nuzzling at Raven's hands and even attempting to lick Emma's fingers. Visitors!

"Look at you," Emma had jerked her fingers away, and then had absently smoothed down part of his scruff as though Charles' attempt at indignity had never happened. "My poor nephew."

" _What are the two of you doing here?_ " Erik snapped, his tone edged with an ugly tension of potential violence. Both of the Frosts, however, ignored him; Raven was kneeling down and running her palm under Charles' ribs to his belly, rubbing soft circles until his jaws parted and he thumped his tail against the wood-panelled floor with puppyish pleasure.

"So our source was right. Since the last full moon, I suppose... almost a month." Raven scratched at Charles' ears and chuckled when he nuzzled her happily. "Are you naming one after me? You are, aren't you, darling cousin?"

"I suppose that naming one after Kayla would be somewhat acceptable," Emma mused, "If the pup is female, Arctus, and tolerably appealing in nature."

"How did Arctus even _know_..." Erik trailed off, with a hard glance behind him, at the servants' quarters. "You and your spies. I should have known."

Raven was scratching under Charles' chin and grinning wickedly at how Charles squirmed and thumped his tail again in delight. "A little bird told us that my cousin was growing out of sorts and hadn't been able to change forms since the last full moon. We grew concerned."

"I'm taking care of it," Erik growled, "I've had all the silver in the house locked in the attic, and he's being fed and guarded."

"Poor cousin," Raven seemed to ignore Erik again. "Bored out of your mind, are you? Of course you are. I remember when my dam was last pregnant again. Everyone had to line up to entertain her, for fear of her tantrums. Being unable to shift forms must be _so_ very upsetting."

"What is this?" Emma had found the notebook, and was leafing through it with a curl to her lips. "Is this how Charles has to communicate his needs? This situation is unacceptable. We are returning to Ilulissat, where my nephew may at the very least be properly attended." At Erik's rumbling growl, Emma sniffed and added, "I suppose that the dire wolf may come along, as well," in a tone that strongly implied that as far as Emma was concerned, that was a (barely tolerable) necessary evil.

Charles stared at Emma in astonishment, then he had to hastily pull out of Raven's grasp and insert himself between his aunt and his mate as Erik stepped forward threateningly, every line in his body tight with fury. Grudgingly, Erik relaxed a little when Charles bumped at his thigh with his muzzle, though he reached down to curl his long, elegant fingers possessively in Charles' ruff. "We're not going _anywhere_."

"Oh, come on, he's still good to travel," Raven dusted herself off and rose to her feet. "You have no facilities here and no one with any expertise. What if there are complications? Other than old age and trappers that's the main reason why female werewolves buy the farm, after all. Look at what happened to Kay-"

" _Raven_ ," Emma interrupted, her tone glacial, and Raven glanced over at her, unrepentant, and Erik's grip on his ruff tightened to the point of pain.

"He deserved to know, Emma."

Erik's grip closed even further, to the point where Charles had to grit his teeth to keep from whining in protest. Emma narrowed her eyes dangerously at this, her gaze flicking between Erik's curled fingers and Charles' flattened ears, then she said, quietly, "Charles," and her left, delicately booted heel shifted back a hand's breadth, as though bracing herself for attack, her white-gloved hands splaying loose-fingered over the fur-lined pockets of her coat.

His mate didn't move, but the aggression scent in the room spiked, and hastily, Charles shook his head, and tried to look as ingratiating as possible. He didn't want trouble, not between Emma and _Erik_ , not now, not _ever_. So his mother Kayla had passed away... because of his birth? Charles wasn't sure what to think. Emotions were more difficult in wolf form; he'd previously hypothesized that this was because of the way wolf minds were shaped, sharpened on instinct and muscle-memory rather than unnecessarily complex cognitive function. Dimly, he could feel sadness, and a lurching, vague sense of guilt at being the cause of his mother's death, but the wolf-form's pragmatic nature soon shrugged it aside, focused on the life that it knew was growing within its belly.

Charles suspected that this would be no different, even had he retained his human mind. The shock and unpleasantness of the situation aside, no matter which form he wore, he knew that he would willingly die if that was what it took for the birth to be successful. The wolf accepted this as fact. The human within him sought refuge in social sentimentality. Either way, the possibility of death, however painful, however protracted it might be, did not frighten him. Nor, somehow, did the possibility of an improved life expectancy in Arctus hands seem attractive in the least.

Therefore, pared down to wolf-logic, coupled with his acceptance of his situation, come what may, it seemed only that Emma and Raven were trying to remove him from his home - his _territory_ , and his mate, Erik, was clearly thoroughly unhappy about the prospect, and at that, wolf-logic stood steadfast where human-logic might have caved out of curiosity's sake. Firmly, Charles shook his head again, and this time, locked gazes with Emma, steeling himself as he did so, trying to find a balance between seeming friendly, yet determined.

Eventually, Emma sighed out aloud and averted her gaze. "You're just as difficult as she was."

"You owe Grandsire a Macallan, Emma. He _did_ tell you that this would be the only result." Raven said, her tone lightening into wicked cheer. "It takes moving heaven and earth to dig a gravid she-wolf out of her den, let alone one with Arctus blood. How many rooms are there in this old place?"

Erik shrugged. Even Charles wasn't sure; he'd once counted about twenty separate, functional guest rooms before he'd decided that he hadn't really needed to know. "Why?"

Charles winced. The aggression spike scent remained, the fur on his scruff stiff from it, and Erik's tone was outright hostile. Charles rubbed his cheek against Erik's thigh in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, but he was ignored, and Emma merely pursed her lips at the sight, as though observing something distasteful.

"Grandsire was certain that Charles would refuse to come back. So we packed a medical team and a security detail. They'll move into the spare rooms," Raven waved a hand at the mansion around them, smirking at Erik's undoubtedly stormy expression. "And decent rooms will be arranged for Emma and myself, I presume. Oh, don't scowl, Lehnsherr, it's tiresome," she added, every bit as imperious as her aunt, "You have no Pack other than yourselves, no security, and you're in the badlands. Grandsire decided to extend my cousin a gesture of good will."

"And his price?" Erik asked, as glacial as the winter winds.

"Why, I'm shocked," Raven pressed a palm over her ample breast. "To think that you would suspect Charles' _family_ of base conspiracies."

Erik _growled_ , and this time, Charles huffed, pulling carefully out of Erik's grip, nuzzling his fingers affectionately, nipping gently at the digits until Erik looked down at him. "Charles. Arctus will have an agenda. We can't simply..." Erik's words trailed away as Charles stared at him, waiting, until Erik finally sighed explosively and closed his eyes, hands clenched. Charles sat down, and looked back towards Emma, nodding carefully.

As possessive as Erik was, as paranoid as his life after the War had made him, logically Charles knew that he could very well need this - now that the issue of not having to leave his territory was sorted. He knew nothing of what was to come, and if pressed, deep down, he doubted that Erik had a very good grasp of the mechanics, either. Although Charles had little care about his life, he knew also that he now had other lives to worry about, and a little expert medical aid would not go amiss. At the very least, it would quite possibly spare some local human vet from being press-ganged into the unbelievable, should Charles actually end up needing medical attention, and he didn't want to think about _that_.

Besides, it posed an excellent opportunity to study werewolf interaction, this time between two separate Packs, without the destabilizing presence of Shaw. Not to mention werewolf genetics, if the medical team was specialised to such an extent. Even sharpened and simplified by his instincts, Charles couldn't help but perk up at the very thought. He'd have to get the notepad back from Emma, somehow. Raven seemed amenable enough, and Charles had _questions_.

"Fine." Erik said finally, flatly. "But I'll be watching all of you very closely."

" _Wonderful_ ," Raven said archly, even as Emma sniffed and glided past them, stalking towards the eastern wing to inspect it, "I'll get the staff arranged immediately."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I'm too lazy to relink all the images that Photobucket has broken, sorry, so I'm editing my fics to remove them. 
> 
> I'll be writing this fic somewhat more slowly than I did its predecessor, I think. Because Charles is effectively a wolf for the entire fic, he has no (spoken) dialogue, so it'll be somewhat challenging. ^^;;


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik resents McCoy. There's always a niggling sense of doubt in the back of his mind, that if he hadn't been caught by Shaw again, Charles could - quite possibly - have mated with McCoy, and wouldn't ever have regretted it. The very thought makes him feel violent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I have far too many ideas for this fic, it's had the effect of slowing me down. D:

II.

Once Erik had become nominally used to the calculated intrusion on his territory and the back-of-the-mind urge to attack unfamiliar wolves on sight, he supposed that _logically_ , having the medical team around was not entirely unwelcome. He wasn't so sure what to think about the security team, but he had never heard of Arctus ever grossly breaching Pack law to the extent of kidnapping pups or a pregnant female. Besides, it was entirely possible that Charles' gray wolf blood would simply breed true again, they would end up with gray pups, and that would be the end of Arctus' interest in the matter.

Hopefully.

Personally, he didn't care what color or shade his pups were - _his_ , his and _Charles'_ \- but Erik grimly supposed that he would have to prepare himself for the possibility that their new 'allies' might turn on them if Charles birthed an Arctus pup. Especially if it were female. They _were_ in the badlands, after all, and Erik had chosen to keep his new Pack on a low profile, seeing as there were only two of them; he'd regretted the fact that Dartmoor, Iberico and Caledon had known about them too.

Now, on hindsight, that in itself was a safety net. He'll have to call Summers, drop some details, get the brat to nose around and set him up with some information. The other Packs had to know that Arctus was here - just in case. Perhaps this would make the Frosts tread lightly where they weren't entirely wanted.

 _Charles_ , on the other hand, bloody Charles, seemed to _like_ all the new faces, all the attention. Emma had brought a goddamned _retinue_ of other werewolves with her, and much to Erik's irritation, that included that skinny, nervous werewolf he'd last seen in Shaw's domain, that _other_ werewolf which Charles had been so bloody fond of.

Hank McCoy.

Charles had glared openly at Erik when he'd begun with bristling hostility, and although he'd managed to refuse to apologize, Charles had been pointedly ignoring Erik for an hour. Erik had settled for remaining within arm's reach of Charles and radiating enough simmering aggression to make McCoy squirm and stammer, but the other male werewolf had eventually just become absorbed in all the gibberish he was spouting, leaving Erik to sit silent and frustrated in his armchair, daydreaming viciously about silver knives and bullets.

He was _not_ jealous.

He had no rational reason to _be_ jealous, after all. Charles was already _his_.

He was not _jealous_.

McCoy was chattering about something mind-breakingly incomprehensible to Charles, leafing through a thick notebook of hand-written text, and to Erik's sheer irritation, Charles had been rapt for it all, occasionally pressing a paw to the text to slow down the page turning, or making laboriously written comments in his notepad. Erik had already read his morning copy of the Times from page to back twice, and was heartily bored.

"...you're right, of course," McCoy said, enthusiastic, "Arctus blood is the key. Arctus wolves are the only breed which have traits that carry over in their human form - the blue eyes - and vice versa-" Charles made a yipping, querying sound, and McCoy turned a page on his notebook. "It's precisely why Arctus blood is prized. It's not the _look_ , not really, though, uh, of course, you've seen your aunt's form, they _are_ , well, I guess they're beautiful," McCoy lowered his voice for a moment, sniffing and looking around hastily, as though expecting one of the Frosts to abruptly emerge from behind an ottoman.

When Charles yipped again, McCoy added, somewhat more quietly, "Arctus is the only breed that remains mostly... _human_ , even after a shift. That's what I've heard. You feel that, don't you? Is that right? Apparently it's like having two sets of thoughts - wolf thoughts, and human thoughts, sort of messily melded together, part human conceptualisations, part wolf, with the latter dominant save maybe during a full moon. It's not like that for the rest of us. When we're human, we're human. When we're wolf, we're wolf, mostly instinct. Maybe smarter than the average wolf, with higher cognitive functions - but mostly wolf. Arctus wolves aren't that way. It's why your blood is prized."

Charles wrote carefully for a long moment, as McCoy peered at the paper, and despite himself, Erik felt a stir of curiosity. He'd heard this about Arctus before, of course; being the apex Pack in the werewolves' loosely formulated societal strata, rumors and myths abounded about them, some more fantastical than most, particularly in the slow crawl of day in the dead of winter, but he'd never paid it much thought. He hadn't quite understood why this had made Arctus prized, in any regard-

"No, that's not it," McCoy said, when Charles stopped writing. "I can't describe it. I... look, I have an example. Fire. In my wolf form, I'll instinctively shy away from fire. You won't. And you'll be able to stare down most other wolves. You think as a human in both forms. That makes wolves like you far more dangerous than the rest of us, and we know it. There's something... there's just something _different_ ," McCoy said, and looked embarrassed when Charles tilted his head. "It's hard to study. Arctus doesn't really view other Packs with respect, let alone allowing someone like me to go in and interview them or take samples. But I've been trying. Miss Raven is very tolerant."

"I don't know _why_ ," McCoy murmured, after reading Charles' next words. "Not scientifically... yes, there's socially accepted myth... did anyone tell you about Cain? Cain and Abel?"

Charles glanced over at Erik, who realized that he had been openly watching them for the last five minutes, and belatedly and pointedly raised his paper. "Ah, well," McCoy cleared his throat, sounding uncomfortable all over again. "The generally accepted story is that Cain was, well, after he was banished, he left his father's fields after his brother's murder to walk the Northern wastes, until his pelt turned white as snow, his eyes blue as ice. So, um, the first werewolf was Arctus. That's why all the Grandsires - that's the Arctus Pack's alpha male - are all renamed Cain, regardless of the gender of their human form. After the fashion of the First Pack."

Erik had known of that story, but had personally always considered it to be possibly Arctus-generated propaganda to justify their social standing, and had never paid it much heed. Still, Erik had never faced an Arctus wolf in actual battle before, discounting all the rough and tumble play that Charles occasionally egged him into, but he'd never have had a chance to - Arctus was the only Pack that _didn't_ get involved in all the ritual battles, all the occasional spats, the rare, all out lethal skirmishes over shaky territorial lines. He'd long assumed that this was because Arctus was content with its territory - the entirety of the Northern lands, all the uninhabitable stretches snow and ice that other Packs didn't value, or some sort of separate agenda that didn't interest him. Erik had no real interest in Pack politics.

Now that he had Charles, however, Erik regretted the gap in his knowledge that blind focus had cost him. "Have you met the current Cain Frost?"

Both Charles and McCoy snapped up their heads, startled when he spoke, and McCoy flushed and averted his eyes quickly when Erik scowled at him. "Um, er, not, never spoken, I've seen him, Miss Emma presented us, that's me, and Janus and Azazel. He's very old. Not that I'm saying that he's lost his faculties, anything like that. He's, ah, just, old."

"What did he say about Charles?"

Charles stared at him, but Erik refused to meet his eyes. McCoy turned a page on his notebook, then nervously turned it back. "Well, that, you know, Charles, I'm not so sure..." Hank trailed off for a moment when Charles nosed his hand encouragingly, then he sighed. "He's Arctus, and you're a gray, not that there's anything wrong with that but-"

"He was disappointed?" Erik hadn't meant to, but the curl of cold fury that he felt at the very thought made Hank sit up in panic. How _dare_ some old, dying wolf far north in the wastes think that Charles was somehow _lesser_ than he because of the color of his fur? It made Erik irrationally angry.

"No, well, no, you see..." McCoy took in a deep breath, when Charles nosed him again. "Miss Kayla was his favorite of all of his grandchildren. It gets complicated from there." McCoy glanced quickly at the doorway, then back at Charles, and dropped his voice further. "They want you to go back to Ilulissat, Charles. Don't go."

"And why's that?" Erik asked, warily.

McCoy even managed to meet his eyes for a moment. "I've travelled. I mean, relatively speaking, I'm probably younger than you are, Lehnsherr, but I've gone around the Continent. After I left my Pack, I've seen others, and then there was Shaw's. Arctus is like none of them. There's a Pack structure, but it's like nothing I've ever seen."

Charles made a querying sound, even as Erik pressed, "Different? How?"

"Our Packs are structured like wolf Packs. Roughly speaking. Core breeding pair, shared or allocated tasking, informal hierarchical strata, all centred on concepts of territory and breeding rights. It's not perfect, usually nowhere _near_ perfect, but it usually works," McCoy said reluctantly, and only after Charles nuzzled his wrist. "Arctus isn't like that at all."

"And what are they like?"

McCoy shivered, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost inaudible. " _Human_."

"Human?" The Times was already forgotten on his lap, and Erik was seated on the edge of his chair, feet flat on the ground. McCoy's scent of fear-distaste-rejection was contagious.

"They're structured the way a human would structure a group of people in danger of going extinct," McCoy said quietly. "Pragmatically. There's failsafes in place, complex statistics-based charts to avoid inbreeding to an unacceptable degree, social structures based on _bloodline_ and 'blood purity' rather than the results of ritual battles."

"That's..." Erik frowned, struggling with the concept. "That's not possible." It went against Pack law. And he'd never even _heard_ about it. "You're mistaken."

"It is possible. I've been let around Ilulissat; Grandsire had some interest in my research, he gave me a bit more freedom than usual for a non-Arctus wolf. I don't expect you to believe me," McCoy said defensively, then he paused when Charles wrote something.

"About females? Umm... if a second or third gen out there in another Pack births an Arctus female, sooner or later she'd be taken back into the Pack. And no 'pure' Arctus female is ever let out of Arctus, not without extraordinary circumstances. Miss Kayla had to elope - with a lot of cunning, I hear, and the connivance of her twin sister - and Miss Emma had to find a mate stronger than any other werewolf. Within Arctus, they would have had one role only."

Erik met Charles' eyes, grimly, forced himself to hold it until Charles' bright blue eyes turned liquid with uncertainty and the gray looked down at his paws. So his worst concerns had been right, after all. "You're all here to see what color our pups turn up."

Charles made a shocked sound, and McCoy winced. "Essentially. That's what I suspect. I'm sorry." Charles shook his head, disbelieving, and McCoy sighed, chewing anxiously on his lower lip. "I'm sorry. I had to tell you."

"I'm going to make a phone call," Erik decided, through gritted teeth. "Charles, with me." He wouldn't be able to afford to let Charles out of his sight.

2.0.

Charles allowed Erik to hover over him for another day or so, occupied in trying to think his way around what Hank had told him, and in the end, the scientist within him had decided that he needed another opinion. He didn't doubt Hank's sincerity, but he wasn't entirely sure about whether Hank was _right_. It didn't seem to fit with Emma's bearing, the way she had simply ordered Raven around, her regal airs. Possibly, observing a Pack run along human lines might have just spooked Hank.

It didn't explain why his mother _and_ Emma had left it.

Emma was seated primly on a chair overlooking the garden grounds, a cup of tea on a low table beside her and a book over her lap, and she arched one perfect eyebrow when Charles carefully nosed his notepad up on the table, pen in his mouth, trying to look ingratiating. "Yes?" she asked, inflectionless, then pursed her lips when Charles wrote a 'Q', then a wobbly '?' beside it. "Very well."

"Charles, I don't think that you should-" Charles cut off Erik's comment with a snort, then he inclined his head back at the mansion, pointedly. Emma had shot her _mate_ for him; as far as Charles was concerned, she could be trusted. Erik, however, stood his ground, folding his arms. "Charles."

Later, Charles would blame hormones for the sudden spike of temper that he felt. Carefully, Charles put the pen back on the notepad, then he drew up his lips in a growl, crouching. Erik took a step back, blinking in his surprise, with a sharp " _Charles_ ," that Charles pointedly ignored, padding closer, bristling and growling until one of Emma's retinue poked his russet-furred head out of the Blue Lounge's window briefly, ears flicked forward and alert, ducking back indoors only at a sharp gesture from Emma.

"We'll like some privacy, Lehnsherr," Emma said, her tone cold and edged with malice, though she didn't look up from her book, "If you please."

"I won't leave Charles alone with you," Erik retorted stubbornly.

"Don't be tiresome, _dirus_ ," Emma traced a line on her book with the tip of a forefinger. "Charles wants you to give us a moment. Respect his will. He's your equal, not a wilting wallflower. _Leave us_."

Erik visibly flinched at the sudden whiplike snap in Emma's tone, but he stared down at Charles instead, pale with anger in lieu of the fear that Charles could sense him bottling in. A couple of months or more ago, Charles would have caved, still eager to please, eager to ingratiate himself to the new presence in his life, but now, he held his ground, jerking his muzzle again in the direction of the mansion, and met his eyes until Erik looked away with a low, guttural curse and whirled on his heels, marching back towards the mansion.

"He won't go far," Emma murmured, as Charles trotted back up to the side table to sit down. "The _dirus_ are stubborn."

Charles didn't think Erik would. He parted his jaws, lolling his tongue out wryly, until Emma sniffed.

"You have questions that you don't want your mate to hear. You've been listening to McCoy's stories, have you?"

It wasn't really a question, but Charles nodded, picked up the pen, and wrote a slow, careful, _u went back_ , the nib skittering at an awkward, wiggling angle, then shot Emma an apologetic look as she sighed and read his nearly illegible scrawl. "We have a far more dignified system for this in Ilulissat," she said, her tone inflectionless again, as though too well-bred to show irritation. "It works on the anticipation of your desires. Yes, I went back. I wanted to - I wanted to see how much closer Grandsire was coming to his... inevitable retirement." Emma's lip curled briefly. "There will be a power struggle in Arctus soon, I believe. I am considering becoming directly involved."

 _Hank said_ , Charles wrote, hesitated, then added, laboriously, _about u_ , and Emma sniffed. "No doubt. Arctus is different. In some ways, it's worse than the others. In many others, it's better. Take yourself, for example. The way your mate is treating you right now, it's normal for another Pack. And for the most part, as far as I am aware, their females won't think worse of it; they're wolves in wolf form, they do instinctively want to hole up someplace warm, safe and just get fed regularly. You - poor child - you must have been utterly bored."

Charles nodded cautiously, if with a quick glance around to see if Erik was anywhere within sight. "They can't help it, of course. Their wolf natures are uncontrollable, it makes them barbaric." Emma pursed her lips again, her eyes growing briefly distant. "You and I would be properly respected in Ilulissat. But that would not make us any less a token in Grandsire's plans. Yet none of us would be able to challenge him. It'll take an Arctus male, preferably a pure one, backed by a power base of breeding females."

 _Raven_ , Charles scratched, then a wibbly '?', and Emma shook her head slowly. "I considered that. But she isn't ambitious, not that way. There are some others, but I would not trust them. Still, time is on our side." Emma said, thoughtfully, "That old wolf has years within him yet. Decades, perhaps; he's tenacious that way. It was truly a pity about Shaw," she added, absently. "An Arctus male with Kenai traits could have toppled Grandsire easily."

A few loose ends tied themselves quickly together. So _that_ was why Emma, proud, independent, queenly Emma, had taken Shaw as her mate. Charles blinked at her, sitting up, and she chuckled mirthlessly, reaching over to stroke elegant fingers briefly through Charles' mane. "Or perhaps an Arctus male with _dirus_ traits."

Charles stared at her, wide-eyed, and Emma absently pressed her palm briefly over his cheek. "We'll allow your mate and the others their misunderstandings. After all, it's entirely possible that you'll birth grays. Don't look at me like that, child," she added, with a thin-lipped smile, as Charles continued to stare at her, silently, "This remains a long shot, and a mere possibility, one of many. But if you were truly interested in making any change at all to our society," Emma opened her book to another page, "Starting from the top would provide you with a standing advantage."

 _Other Packs_ , Charles wrote carefully, then, as Emma frowned, added a laborious _change?_ She curled her lush lips, too elegant to sneer, but it was close. "They haven't changed much over the last few hundred years, Charles, and small wonder. You don't see 'true' wolves changing Pack structures and customs, do you? Pack law is natural law to them, customs are unshakeable, and why should it not be? Half of the time, they're little more than animals."

The cold disdain in Emma's tone took Charles aback, and he blinked at her, scrambling to write _not all_ , but in his haste, the words scratched out, spiky and illegible. "You're young," Emma told him, matter-of-factly, "And that blood-mad dire wolf was the first one you'd ever met, more's the pity, you're remarkably attached to him. And he'll be loyal to you, there's no doubt about that; he'll die for you without hesitation if he must. But there's reasons why Arctus females eventually return home, and it's not always due to Grandsire's pressures. Your mate, McCoy, the others not of our blood; they won't understand. Perhaps neither do you, not yet, but in a decade or so, you will."

Charles shook his head sharply, but he felt a crawling sense of doubt begin to take hold, a distinct, sour unease. Erik's unshakeable conviction in what was right and what was wrong, what was _expected_ and what was necessary, was often amusing, often curious, but it was already, slowly, beginning to chafe. He had always thought that this was because of Erik's nature; Erik was stubborn and wilful in both of his forms. Perhaps that conclusion had been far more insidiously true than he had even contemplated.

Still... willingly leaving Erik? He couldn't even think about it. Erik was difficult to live with at the best of times, but Charles no longer wanted it any other way.

 _Mother_ , Charles wrote slowly, _left_.

"She did," Emma said neutrally, the words _and for a gray_ remaining unspoken between them, cold and dangerous. He was nearing a nerve, Charles sensed, but he persevered, with a shaky _why_ , and underlined it, when Emma thinned her lips until they were nearly white, her hands curled in her lap.

"Because she loved him," Emma's tone was distant, as though long rent of emotion where this was concerned. "She loved his awful jokes and his irreverent disregard of propriety, his social blunders and his silly pride in his 'independence', his damnable _curiosity_ , his blind conviction that every next day could be a 'better one'. He was a lone wolf and a gray, Grandsire would never have approved. I helped her leave, and after that, when I was found out, I faced Grandsire for her and defied him. I never told anyone where she went."

"And then she died." Emma said, in her same, inflectionless tone, "Far away, in the badlands, without me. Now I have you instead."

Emma's brilliant blue eyes had blazed for a moment, like a falling star, though her tone remained dispassionate, and blindly, Charles pushed his muzzle against her palm, resting his jaw on her lap, beside her open book, his eyes wide, plaintive, wanting to reassure and to comfort, not knowing how. Emma regarded him silently, her expression schooled and enigmatic again, then she sank her fingers briefly into his scruff, smoothing down the spikes, and turned her attention back to her book. "You may have the rest of my tea. It's grown cold."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the very beginning, when Raven and Emma had forcibly insinuated themselves into the mansion, Erik thinks his dislike of their calls on Charles' time and company mere irrational possessiveness. Now, he's not so sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually most things just move into action... I guess it's obvious what computer game I'm playing right at this moment.

III.

Charles had been put out with him before, but it never lasted; Erik usually assumed it to be a fact of Charles' naturally sunny personality. Besides, it wasn't as though Erik ever did anything that was unnecessary or inappropriate in terms of Pack law, so it was only logical that Charles would come to see that Erik was not in fact the one in the wrong. Eventually. Once his human tendencies had pared themselves down the way they ought to, sooner or later. Charles _had_ to eventually recognise that they weren't human - that they were _more_ than human, and as such, human idealism wasn't even relevant.

Since being chased off so unceremoniously in the garden, however, something between them seemed to have slipped, changed gears, and Erik was uncomfortably aware that he had no idea what to make of it. Charles' bearing seemed more confident now where before he would often look to Erik, as though deferring to him, and though Erik had recognised the steel in Charles before they had taken each other as mates, it had usually stayed well-hidden. And Charles had never before used it against him without at the very least immediately couching it in velvet.

Charles stared gravely at him for a long moment as he hopped up onto their bed, and Erik forced himself to wait it out, curling his long fingers into the quilt even as a cold frisson tried to crawl down his spine, and eventually, Charles snorted, lying down heavily, his back turned to Erik. Erik tried not to exhale far too loudly, turning his eyes back up towards the drapes on the four-poster, unsettled all over again.

He would _not_ apologize.

Time crawled past, unbearably slowly. Erik couldn't sleep. He hadn't been able to get close enough to listen in on whatever Charles had been discussing with Emma, and the confusion he felt at being forced out of the conversation was gnawing on his nerves. He'd seen breeding females in his Pack grow pregnant before, and usually what simply happened was that they would become inseparable from their mates save for emergencies, that they would _want_ it that way. Erik himself could feel the abrupt, driving impulse to stay close to Charles at all times, triggered by knowledge and the changes to Charles' scent, and being driven off was not only bewildering but frightening. It was as though Charles didn't feel the connection between them.

Maybe he _should_ have waited, despite Charles' invitations and propositioning, but even if Erik sorted out instinct from the equation, he wouldn't have been able to manoeuvre matters any other way the moment Charles had straddled his lap and kissed him; the moment Charles had braved Shaw with his foolish fearlessness and extracted Erik from a slow death in Shaw's torture cells. He had known _then_ , if unconsciously, that he would want none other.

Charles, on the other hand, Charles had only _just_ reached maturity. Females would never have been bred out so young, in a normal Pack. Perhaps Charles was regretting more than just the pregnancy. The possibility sickened him, made his heart want to crawl into his stomach.

There was a slow huff, then Charles was resting his muzzle on Erik's chest, his ears flicking back and forth, inquisitive, then he huffed again, this time in pleasure, when Erik curled his arms around the small wolf's neck and hugged him tightly. A wet tongue dragged up his cheek, sloppily, and he could hear Charles' tail thumping on the bed like a bloody _dog_ , but he made no comment, curling up to bury his face in Charles' fur and breathe deeply, slowly, shakily, until his mate's warm scent calmed him down and Charles stopped nuzzling him.

Erik wanted to say something, _I love you_ , perhaps, but it was a craven thing to say in the circumstances and it would stink of desperation, all the more so that it wasn't true; what he felt for Charles was both far more than and far less than human concepts of love, far more consuming, far more primal. He had begun to love Charles before the full moon, and afterwards, love became an inextricable mesh of part human, complex emotion and part lupine biological drives. Wolves mated for life, and that basic dictate also determined what his human part felt about it all.

Charles, on the other hand, had Arctus blood.

Shaw had looked _very_ surprised when he had died.

Erik had a nagging feeling that he knew far less about Arctus than he really should. Perhaps he would have to - as much as he disliked the idea - make some nominally friendly overture to McCoy, and repair that particular gap in his knowledge.

Charles closed his teeth very gently on Erik's ear, tugging, until Erik shifted up to look at him, though he kept his hands tangled in Charles' fur, then he was flinching and coughing as Charles deliberately licked his way wetly up from Erik's chin up to his nose and parted his jaws in a grin, thumping his tail again.

"What?" Erik asked, tension and hurt and worry making his tone curt, and Charles' tail froze in mid-air, tilting his head, as if asking the same question in return.

Could it be that Charles didn't realize what he had done by chasing Erik away, what he had _signalled_... No, no, Erik was _sure_ that Charles hadn't realized it at all. Erik had assumed that Charles would have naturally thought separation anathema in his current state, but then-

But then _Emma had shot Shaw_.

And Charles had sought Emma's counsel, while purposefully closing Erik out of it.

 _Please tell me what's wrong_ , Erik wanted to say, but he choked down the words; it wasn't in _his_ nature to just _ask_ for things. "If you regret anything at all," he found himself saying instead, gruffly, "Not just your current... situation... just tell me," Erik concluded, somewhat lamely. Even if Charles could tell him - then what? It wasn't as though Erik would be willing to stand aside, even if he could. Instincts aside, Erik doubted that he had that sort of selflessness. "I'll understand." Or he'll try to.

Charles eyed him for a moment, then made a yipping sound, playful, and began licking his face sloppily, until Erik yelped and ducked, growling, "I _mean_ it, Charles," and finally snarling and shifting forms, the dire wolf shrugging Charles off easily, glaring at him, then relenting as Charles leaned forward to mouth at his muzzle affectionately. Once in wolf form, Erik felt calmer, resting his muzzle against the curve of Charles' scruff and idly watching the growing swell to his belly. The world always seemed sharper, cleaner, through a wolf's eyes; Charles was carrying his pups, and clearly cared for him - Erik-as-a-wolf was content with that.

He dozed lightly, semi-alert, when Charles' breathing evened into small, snuffling snores, bracketing the smaller wolf's form with his bulk, listening to his heart beating, the sounds of insects and an owl from the woods, murmurs from the security team one floor below, and the sharpening whistle of _something rapidly approaching the glass window to his left_ -

Charles yelped in shock when Erik abruptly shouldered him off the bed, then he stared wide-eyed as glass tinkled, something metallic rolling on the carpet, behind the bed, out of sight. Erik growled, shifting to open the bedroom door, bodily hauling Charles through it, then slamming it shut and shifting back just in time to hear a hissing sound, the growing scent acrid and instantly familiar. _Gas_.

Hunters.

He turned up his nose and let loose a deep-throated, furious howl, sounding the alarm, nipping sharply at Charles until Charles blinked and kept pace with him, heading for the ground floor in a quick trot. Shouts and snarls from other rooms around them, as well as other tinkling sounds, almost in concert, indicated that this was a planned, calculated attack; the hunters were trying to smoke them out.

The door before them swung open, and Erik automatically tensed to spring, relaxing only when Raven stumbled out, coughing and rubbing at her eyes, balancing a rifle in her free hand, dressed in a bathrobe. "Emma? Where's Emma? Bloody _hunters_ must have caught our trail from the airport," Raven growled, looking around with watering eyes even as she kicked her door shut. "Never should've used commercial routes... Emma?"

"Here." Emma too was in a robe, though she looked as immaculate as ever, a pistol in her grasp and a pouch of ammunition slung across to her hip, striding up behind them with her retinue in tow, part in wolf form, part human, all coughing and rubbing at their eyes. "Janus and three others are nearly in position to return fire on the roof. The rest of you, wolf form. It's night out, you know what to do. Not you, McCoy," she added, when the skinny brown and white wolf at her heels looked confused. The others dropped and shifted, streaming past, heading for the stairs on silent paws. If Janus' team was good, there'd be enough covering fire for a pack of trained wolves to give any set of hunters a good fight.

"I'll go with Janus," Raven said, striding back down the corridor, "Our fur's damnably obvious in this light."

"We need a safe place on this floor, where we can hold out," Emma said, in a clipped tone, "A large room with cover, preferably. Windows if we have to make a quick exit."

Erik nodded, thinking quickly, even as Charles pressed against him, as though for comfort, though he didn't smell fear from his mate, only wariness. Mouthing reassuringly at Charles' muzzle, Erik set off on a brisk trot towards the library in the central wing, nosing the heavy door open and padding in first, sniffing and peering around in the dark. The windows were intact, and the sounds of gunfire and shouts seemed concentrated in the eastern wing and the woods close to it. Leading Charles and the others into the library, his paws sinking into the carpet, Erik growled softly to himself at the sound of a vicious howl, his ears pricking forward. Someone had found a target.

"Charles, get under that table," Emma gestured at the antique mahogany desk which was the centrepiece of the room, over which notes and heavy books were piled in Charles' haphazard sense of order, bright tabs of paper marking places, the carcasses of forgotten pens rolled and nearly lost in the plush carpet.

Charles waited, staring at Erik anxiously, but the dire wolf butted at his ribs, and reluctantly, he obeyed, trotting over under the table. McCoy had padded over to the windows, peering out carefully through each one, even as Erik faced the door, waiting. The sound of Emma loading her pistol in the room was irritatingly loud. No silver in the ammunition, at least, not that he could sense, but Erik was careful to keep himself between her and Charles, as she settled down in a plush armchair, her eyes flicking from the door to the windows, waiting.

Eventually, the shouting and gunfire stopped, and Charles poked his head out from under the table with a querying yip, only to be shushed by a glare from both Emma and Erik. McCoy had settled himself near the door, visible only as a pair of worried feral yellow eyes in the dark. Faintly, Erik could hear a rustling sound, from below, the scrape of a boot against old stone, and he glanced at Emma, then at the windows, padding forward to peer out.

Glass tinkled as grappling hooks swung into the windows of the gassed bedrooms, and he could count about three, four figures, slowly climbing up the walls of the mansion. He bared his teeth silently, and then backed away as Emma sidled up to the window, glancing out in turn, then she began to stride towards the doorway even as Charles took an anxious step forward. McCoy looked between Erik and Emma, then he hastily padded after Emma, pausing as she bent to whisper something at him. Instantly, he darted back down the corridor, presumably to fetch Raven and the others.

Erik nosed the door back ajar, and glowered at Charles until Charles retreated back under the table, hidden in shadow. Erik sidled behind one of the armchairs, within pouncing distance of both the door and the closest window, waiting.

Then there was gunfire, shouts and screams from the room closest to them; confusion and yells from the hunters. Erik hesitated, considering whether or not to go and assist Emma; if she was killed, he might have to face all the hunters by himself with backup in an uncertain status - then he growled softly instead, as a grappling hook broke through the window closest to him.

The first hunter that broke the glass and pulled himself through managed a brief, short scream as the dire wolf landed on him and tore out his throat, his pistol discharging harmlessly into the ceiling, then Erik shifted forms and grabbed the gun, firing calmly into the next hunter that had poked his head up over the windowsill. He caught a brief glance of a pale face, frozen in shock, before the human's skull snapped back in a spray of blood that painted the broken glass, falling backwards towards the gardens. Erik grit his teeth at the faint, crawling feel of the silver bullets in the gun, forcing himself to tolerate it, glancing briefly out of the window to check for targets.

Flashes of gunfire in the last room that the hunters were crawling into indicated that the fight wasn't over, and Erik dropped the gun out of the partially open window, removed the grapple and pushed the windows fully open, then with a grunt of effort, he heaved out the twitching body of the first hunter he had killed, relaxing only when the sense of silver he had felt on the hunter's body faded with the sound of the heavy thump that the dead weight made on the cobbles below.

Charles was watching him, eyes round with shock, when Erik padded back to inspect him, muzzle red with blood, then he took his position again, watching the door as the gunfire subsided, sniffing at the air.

Emma strode through, stinking of gunpowder and death, expressionless as she swept the room with a brief glance. McCoy poked his head through behind her, looking anxious, his muzzle also streaked with blood, then he relaxed and sat down with a low whine of relief.

"That's all of them for now, I think. Raven's arranging a sweep." Emma's lips curled. "They should have come during the full moon. Then we wouldn't have been able to fire back. Amateurs."

Full moon was in two days, if Erik recalled correctly. Shifting forms, he strode back over to the window, glancing out. "Which operation is this?"

"First Sons," Emma's lips curled slightly in aristocratic disdain. "They moved their base of operations to the badlands after Dartmoor drove them out of England. Capture-study," Emma elaborated, when Erik frowned, trying to jog his memory.

Erik shuddered. Capture-study indicated the rare hunter operations that sought to catch and subdue werewolves. _Research_ organisations, usually secretly government funded, and often, fairly experienced.

Shaw had used a number of them, once.

"Why didn't they wait for the full moon?"

Emma shrugged. "Maybe we were lucky enough to be thoroughly underestimated. Either way, I doubt that's the last of them. We may have to call in reinforcements."

The old mansion would take time to properly reinforce, especially since they would have to start more or less from scratch. Erik exhaled, curling his fingers angrily. More oversight on his part. That aside, the large, rambling property was difficult to defend, and far too much of a fire hazard to be safe; the woods also provided more than enough cover for assailants. If Charles wasn't in a delicate state right now, Erik knew that digging down and defending it with the resources that they had at present wouldn't be too insurmountable a problem; now, however, they might not be able to take any chances.

"We'll post more patrols," Erik decided. "And survey the damage in the morning."

Emma nodded briskly. "They've cut the phone line. I'll send Raven into town once the day breaks. Still, the mansion has been compromised. Do you still intend to stay?"

The question was addressed at Charles, who was pressed up tightly against the back of Erik's knees; he could feel his mate's heartbeat, hammering, but Charles glanced slowly up at Erik, then behind Emma, before raising his gaze to Emma's and nodding his head. Despite his misgivings, Erik relaxed, reassured by Charles' decision, understanding it. This was their home ground, their territory; they would not run. Besides, he had grown fond of the mansion with its austere, antique wings and cluttered rooms, its sprawling woods and lush meadows. It was a place that he wanted his pups to grow up in, exploring the corridors of elaborate rooms and the tangled maze, the cracked old fountains and the crisp, ice-sharp stream that bisected the gnarled old trees.

"You don't run from Hunters, or you'll always be running," Erik reached down absently, until Charles pushed the arch of his furred head up into Erik's palm. "We'll make them learn why they should leave us alone."

3.0.

For all of Erik's bluster the night before, come daybreak, he stuck to Charles like a _limpet_. Charles welcomed the attention during the morning, the absent caresses and the fingers curled alternatively in his scruff or splayed over his haunches; he was unnerved by the attack and spent much of his meal peeking out through the kitchen windows, half expecting another assault to come charging over in broad daylight.

Raven had taken Azazel with her and headed downtown, leaving Emma to take an escort of werewolves to inspect the damage to the mansion and the kills in the woods. Charles didn't want to linger too long on _that_ , and he'd slunk away quickly the moment Emma and Janus had started discussing about 'disposal' and 'tracks', stomach lurching.

Shaw was the first person that Charles had ever seen murdered, and his frozen look of surprise, the wide eyes starting from his draining face, had stayed in Charles' mind for _weeks_. Some nights, it still woke him up, blinking into the dark and nosing blindly against Erik's warm bulk for comfort.

The hunters that Erik had so casually killed in the library, however, unsettled him far more than Shaw's death had. He had grown to know Shaw in the short time that he had been in Shaw's Pack, understood the monstrous nature of the other werewolf, the insanity of his means to his end, and as much as Shaw's execution repulsed Charles on every level, he had known that it was necessary. As to the hunters, he knew nothing of them, of their motives, of whether the men that Erik had murdered had families of their own, whether there could have been some way of subduing them without bloodshed-

The wolf within him balked at the thought, rallying fiercely behind the primal convictions of _territory-invasion_ and _pups-protect_ , but Charles pushed logic to the forefront and ended up guiltily nosing at his own belly as if to apologize to the life within it for doing so. Peace had to start _somewhere_ , and perpetuating a circle of violence was not the answer.

"I'll rig up a perimeter alarm system," Hank was furiously sketching on an enlarged copy of a map of the mansion and the grounds. "I have enough materials, I think, or I should, once Miss Raven comes back from the town. It'll be awfully primitive, but we should be able to hold out over the full moon. You've got deer on the grounds, they'd be tricky, but it's not unsolvable."

Hank had, under Erik's permission, appropriated the French Lounge for a lab, and spools of paper and sketches littered the carpet and the antique Queen Anne table. Erik was pressed up against Charles on the couch, drawing up a patrol roster on a notepad, and occasionally nibbling absently on the tip of his fountain pen, his brow knit deep in concentration.

Sometimes, Charles _really_ regretted being unable to shift forms. He'd slip up into Erik's arms, bat away long fingers coming up to displace him, kiss him until the scowl melted, until Erik straightened and splayed his hands up under his ass and squeezed-

"...Charles?"

Charles blinked at Hank, tilting his head. Hank shot Erik a quick glance, but Erik didn't look up, still going through the roster. "Charles, I was asking, other than deer, any other large animals? Deer sized, that is, not dogs or cats."

Charles thought this over for a moment, then he shook his head cautiously. Deer were the largest sort of game in his family estates, and he preferred to leave the gorgeous, wild creatures to their own devices.

"Some sort of infrared..." Hank muttered, scribbling frantically now, "Pyroelectric detection..."

"If you can make sensors, you can make traps," Erik said, without looking up. Charles shook his head quickly, and Erik glanced up, impatient. "I'm sure that Hank could come up with a trap that kills only humans, not your precious game fowl or deer, Charles."

Charles shook his head quickly again, and nudged over his notepad and pen, writing laboriously, in skittering block text, _NO KILLING_.

"Um," Hank said, uncertainly, even as Erik exhaled loudly and growled, "Charles, there was a kill team of ten, last night, all decently trained. We have two injured wolves, one with a nitrate solution that's left him temporarily blinded, the other with several silver bullets lodged in his ribs that Hank had to do a field operation on. Remember?"

Charles flattened his ears, nodding tightly. "That could have been you, Charles," Erik continued, his eyes narrowed, "Or, if that silver had gotten anywhere close to your... or if it'd lodged in you, poisoned you... werewolf females miscarry easily."

Charles made a low, moaning sound, but he nudged the notepad again, and Erik bit off something harsh under his breath in German, even as Hank ratcheted to his feet, edging towards the door. "I'll, ah, I'll just go, get a drink."

"Sit down, McCoy," Erik said sharply, and Hank's knees even sagged for a moment before he pulled himself quickly back into a chair. "You killed someone last night as well, didn't you?"

"He was going for Miss Emma's back with a silver _knife_ ," Hank said uncomfortably, without meeting either of their eyes. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Knock him over? Chew on his wrist?" Erik sneered, his eyes fixed on Charles, "Some sort of non-lethal approach? McCoy did the right thing - the _instinctive_ thing, he had _no better option_. What if that hunter had pulled another knife? Killed McCoy, perhaps, then your aunt?"

Charles stared at him, steadily, unhappily, but refusing to relent. Last night they were attacked, taken by surprise; retaliation had been uncoordinated, and the instinctive reaction seemed to be savagery. Now they had time to prepare. Things could be _controlled_. "You're wrong on this, Charles," Erik was struggling to calm his tone, but there was violence still in his eyes and his scent, and the unsettled feeling in his stomach was growing with it. "McCoy, about the traps-"

"I'll take my orders from Miss Emma," Hank cut in quickly, wincing when Erik briefly swung his glare up to include him. "Sorry."

"Fine. Talk to her then." Erik snapped, looking back down to Charles. "She'll tell you exactly what I've told you. If you won't trust my opinion then _get it from her!_ "

Charles had bolted up onto all four paws at the vehement anger and hurt in Erik's tone, tail tucking quickly under his hindquarters, but he straightened, watching Erik searchingly for a moment, and when Erik didn't waver, Charles nodded tightly and slipped off the couch, heading towards the foyer. He could vaguely pick out Emma's voice from there.

At the doorway, he almost expected Erik to follow, or to call out to him, but on a backward glance, Erik was writing viciously into the notepad, as though attacking the paper, shoulders bent and strung tight with tension, and Hank was crouched against his chair, feet flat on the ground, darting wide-eyed glances between them. Shaking his head slowly, Charles grit his teeth and trotted out towards the foyer. Perhaps Emma would be able to make everyone see some sense.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dartmoor remembered the First Sons. There had been a successful ambush, a few years ago, that'd left many of their retainers dead, and two of their own captured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, I never intended for this fic to be very long at all. Fail. ^^;; Here I go adding in my favorite characters again...

IV.

A minor mystery was quickly cleared up once the bodies were hauled up from the woods and from the rest of the mansion and lined up in the back yard. Charles had been sitting unhappily next to Emma at the far corner during the whole process, safely out of range as the others sorted through the pockets of the bodies to heap the silver aside for disposal, and then he had suddenly yipped in recognition when one of the hunters was turned over onto his back.

Erik glanced at Charles sharply, then at the corpse - the body was of a stout, middle-aged man, gray tickling his sideburns, his gray eyes open and glassy in death. He was dressed like a sportsman, with a hunting jacket full of pockets and a belt of silver knives and bullets. Erik vaguely remembered seeing him before - leaning down, he took a grip of the man's jowls and turned his chin carefully left and right, then searched his pockets when nothing jogged his memory. A wallet and a business card named the man as Albert Linner, Owner of _Searchlight Books_ \- the secondhand bookstore in town that Charles was so very fond of.

Erik shot Charles a meaningful look - this was what happened when one became far too close to humans - but Charles was looking down at his paws, ears drooped, a picture of heartbreaking misery. With a deep sigh, Erik trudged over, even as Janus began to direct the other wolves to put the disarmed bodies into bags, handing the card to Emma, then stood awkwardly before Charles, uncertain. Instinctively, he wanted to comfort his mate - and he'd know how to, in wolf form - but as a human, Erik wasn't certain whether his overtures would even be accepted, and he had too much pride to try it anyway, in public.

Emma inspected the business card with polite disinterest, passing it to Raven. "Significant?"

"He's the bookstore owner in town. The one that Charles tends to buy most of his wolf literature from." It showed how cunning humans were; Erik had accompanied Charles on his visits to the town, after they had mated, and had formed no specific suspicion about Linner at all - he'd thought the old man harmless.

Raven pursed her lips. "Azazel is still casing the town, but this explains matters." At Erik's arched eyebrow, she elaborated, "Linner must have been familiar with you and Charles. Perhaps familiar with the layout of the mansion as well."

"He came to the mansion a week before Charles became..." Erik trailed off. Charles had invited Linner to the mansion, apparently to discuss a cataloguing system for his library. At that time, Erik had thought nothing of it - Linner had come across as a bumbling, somewhat myopic bibliophile, and Charles had invited other people over time to the mansion, along with contractors, gardeners and other tradespeople as he restored the overgrown grounds. The servants from Arctus could only do so much. "Yes. He was."

He _had_ been lax.

"They must have thought that the mansion only had two werewolves," Emma decided, briskly, and Erik had to agree, nodding tightly. It _was_ unusual, after all, for another Pack to intrude, particularly into the badlands, and the First Sons must have assumed that Emma and the others were just other, human visitors.

A team of ten could have easily captured Erik and Charles, if they had been taken by surprise. It was an ugly thought, and he curled his hands tightly into fists, ignoring the sharp look that Raven shot him and the faint rise to Emma's eyebrows. He knew that he was probably projecting aggression, but Erik didn't care; it was a day to the full moon and everything seemed _wrong_.

Erik had no idea what Emma had told Charles, but Charles had kept to Emma's side since that unpleasant moment in the French Lounge when Erik had lost his temper, and as much as Erik didn't regret his words, he had grudgingly come to consider the possibility that he had mishandled it entirely. He had tried to make things up last night, nosing up to Charles hopefully in wolf form, but Charles had simply curled up and gone to sleep; Erik's anxiety had switched all too quickly to frustrated temper, and he'd chosen to curl up on the other end of the bed rather than persevere. It didn't help that Erik was all too aware that he had no practice whatsoever in the finer points of diplomacy.

"They might come back tonight," Erik said curtly. He _hoped_ that they did. Something probably had to die to take the edge off his temper.

"If they've had reinforcements. I think we got them all," Raven said, watching as the other werewolves heaved the bodies onto a truck, under a tarpaulin, for offsite disposal. "And if we're lucky, we've made them think twice. Hank's set up a perimeter alarm and some non-lethal disabling traps. If they come for us again, we should be able to hold out until the morning, then we'll hand them over to the officials as burglars."

From the offhand way Raven was speaking, Erik suspected that the 'burglars' were far more likely to be taken further away into the woods and disposed of once out of sight or hearing from the mansion, but he kept his peace, glancing between Charles, who seemed to have perked up a little, and Emma herself, who remained expressionless. If this was a compromise that Emma had worked out - Erik _should_ have thought of that, found this easy work-around of Charles' unfortunate aversions rather than snapping outright at Charles and running headlong into his stubborn streak. He'd wanted and chosen a mate who wouldn't simply bend to his will, after all, and he'd _known_ how much of a idealistic pacifist Charles was, from all his horror at the 'barbarism' of some aspects of 'werewolf society', from his sorrowful comments about the intermittent conflicts that cropped up on the news.

"Good idea," Erik said, as neutrally as he could, watching Charles raise his brilliant blue gaze up, as though in surprise, though he didn't move from where he was seated. Erik's stomach sank, and he clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, all too aware that he'd damaged something between them both, and couldn't even see where the breach began and ended. "What about reinforcements?"

"Grandsire made arrangements, I hear," Emma said, with cool disinterest, "Which were meant to arrive this afternoon-"

She cut herself short at the faint sounds of raised voices, from the front of the mansion. Raven narrowed her eyes, her hands going to the pistols at her hips, even as she jerked her chin at Janus. The Spaniard nodded quickly, drawing a revolver and heading for the kitchen, a couple of werewolves disrobing and dropping into their wolf forms, fast on his heels.

Shortly after, Janus reappeared, escorting a vaguely familiar looking, immature male werewolf in human form, broad-shouldered with a solid jaw, chestnut-brown hair shot through with a thick lock of silver, wearing a blue shirt and black jeans under a brown trench coat with a heavy-looking duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His left eye was an empty socket, the grotesque scar tissue worn openly, jagged scars from old silver-caused wounds bisecting it with disturbing precision.

Behind him was a smaller, slighter human in a red vest and combat khaki pants, pistols at his hips and knives in his boots, and what looked like a pair of curved swords strapped to his back, all but bouncing on his heels in a strangely manic buzz of energy. His eyes snapped quickly to Emma and Raven, looking them up and down with a cheerfully brazen disregard for common propriety, his eyes lingering in the dip of Emma's low-cut white blouse. "Oh hel _lo_ USA!"

The male werewolf rolled his single good eye, and held out a large palm. "Nathan Summers of Dartmoor," he introduced himself. "My sire and uncle spoke well of you. Scott and Alex Summers," Nathan added, when Erik looked puzzled.

"They're very kind to do so," Erik said automatically, unsure; he'd made contact with Alex Summers before the attack, but not since then, and he certainly hadn't asked Summers to send anyone over.

"And Raven and Emma Frost, I presume." Nathan solemnly shook hands with them in turn, then bent down on one knee to meet Charles' gaze. "And Charles Xavier. A pleasure."

Charles leaned forward solemnly, though his eyes were all but dancing with curiosity and amusement, and touched noses. Satisfied, Nathan straightened back up. "Cain Frost put forward a question that Dartmoor felt itself best placed to answer."

Emma opened her mouth, but the human was already blithely interrupting. "You mean that your dad decided that since we did it once before, we could burn those sons of bitches - pardon me ladies - again, and booted us all the way here, with jetlag and no overtime. All to earn brownie points with Alaska. I mean, _seriously_ , we could have just washed the old man's car or mowed his lawn or something-"

"Ilulissat." Nathan corrected, with a faint touch of indulgent humor that made Raven tilt her head and Erik frown, confused.

His Pack had never used human servants, but this Dartmoor guard's irreverent attitude was in stark contrast with the silent, careful service provided by the Arctus help, and as far as Erik recalled, the way Arctus' retainers behaved was more of the norm for Packs that did use humans, scenting of respect and superstitious awe. Summers' human merely smelled like _energy_ , edgy and vibrant, and an utter lack of fear.

"Same thing." The human flapped a wrist at them dismissively, and circled over, peering up at the roof, then at the woods. "Huh. If I was them, I'd just set fire to this old heap tomorrow night, during the full moon. Smoke you all out, then tranq the lot of you while you're running around like squealing chickens."

"Please pardon my associate," Nathan said, as Charles let out a yelp of horror, "Wade Wilson is a specialist employed by Dartmoor."

"I also double as a masseuse, a pancake chef, a wedding singer and an exotic dancer," Wilson called down cheerfully, scaling up a pipe set along crumbling stone, hidden under a thick mass of ivy, with prehensile ease, until he was balanced precariously on the lip of the slate roof. "Not bad. Eyes up high, good line of sight. Decent if the moon's bright." He paused, then he added, "Up until the whole place catches fire, of course. Things tend to go to hell when that happens."

"Perhaps we should compare strategies?" Nathan asked mildly, as Erik growled, fighting the urge to find a rock or something equally heavy and knock the mouthy human off _his_ roof. It seemed that he'd thoroughly underestimated Alex Summers' ability to make his life miserable from across the Atlantic.

Emma was more direct, as Raven led them into the mansion with a gesture at Janus to watch the human. "I profess myself somewhat disappointed. Grandsire was under the impression that Dartmoor would send something more substantial than a young werewolf and a human."

"Ah, well," Nathan smiled faintly, not offended in the least, "Your Grandsire advised us that the problem was the First Sons, not another Pack. If it's hunters that we're facing, you'll find that Wade may be somewhat... eccentric... but he is very, very good at what he does."

"And you?" Erik asked, bluntly.

Nathan stared at him with his single eye, his gaze even and direct beyond his years. "I get by. We're not unfamiliar with this set of hunters, Mister Lehnsherr. And I have something to remember them by."

The young werewolf touched the tips of his right forefinger and middle finger to the edge of one of the cruel scars over his eye, and Erik grimaced, even as he saw Charles shudder in his peripheral vision; even Raven straightened, nearly imperceptibly. Only Emma seemed unaffected, her gaze flickering over to Nathan's empty eye, then towards the French Lounge, her tone cool and collected as she spoke. "Perhaps then you'll have the chance to repay them again for the memory, Summers."

"I'll be looking forward to it." Nathan said simply, and while there was no violence in his scent or his tone, Erik felt a little better about the situation. At the very least, Nathan's presence - and his horrific wound - _should_ give Charles something to think about.

4.0.

It didn't take telepathy to see that despite Nathan's seemingly reserved nature, he was very attached to the human that smelled of gunpowder, sugar and leather, and Charles found this both puzzling and gratifying. He himself liked humans, both generally and as people themselves; Linner aside, he liked to think that he'd made more than a few friends over the years in town. Charles enjoyed talking to people, learning about them and the flavors of their mundane lives - it was almost vicarious. So far, however, he hadn't really observed the same opinion in the others; like Erik, Emma and Raven seemed to treat humans as a necessary, but not fully welcome aspect of their lives.

Admittedly, Wilson was a very strange human. Charles watched him thoughtfully, sprawled on the couch in the Oak Drawing Room, with Wilson seated cross-legged on the carpet before him, eyeing the swell of his stomach. Nathan sat beside Charles, going through Erik's roster, with Erik curled in an armchair beside the couch, ostensibly going through Hank's marked-up map of the woods. Emma and the others were prowling around the grounds, making last-minute checks of their defenses, and Charles couldn't help but think that it was a _lot_ of preparation for just a possibility. It would be thoroughly embarrassing if the full moon passed in peace.

"No offense," Wilson said finally, "But going by your name, you're a guy when you're human-shaped?" At Charles' nod, Wilson added, "And you're pregnant."

Charles sighed, and Nathan lowered the roster briefly. "Wade."

"No, that really, sort of, is both fascinating and bloody weird at the same time," Wilson said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "Sort of like a deep fried bar of butter. Delicious butter."

Charles' stomach churned a little at the thought, even as Nathan scribbled something in the margin of the roster. "He's female in this form."

"But he's Arctus, isn't he? So he's got human-guy-shaped thoughts even in this form. Must be pretty weird." Wilson stabbed a finger in Nathan's direction. "Funny how that goes. He's got just the blue eyes, you've got just the white pelt, and he's more or less Arctus, you're not."

Charles stared at Nathan, startled, even as Erik snorted from his armchair. "White fur isn't restricted to Arctus," Nathan stroked Charles carefully and respectfully behind his ears. "But yes, I do have a little Arctus blood. Not enough to retain 'human shaped' thoughts in wolf form. I find it... peaceful, in a way." At Charles' tilted head, Nathan smiled faintly. "All those human prejudices, doubts, wants and flaws, all swept away."

"The human present says thanks, for the distinction," Wilson said dryly, reaching forward, waiting for Charles to sniff at his fingers before petting his scruff, clearly used to werewolf etiquette. "How many are there in here? Two? Three? Six? More?"

"Probably one or two." Nathan said absently, though Charles winced, his mind skittering away from the very concept.

"Aww. I love puppies. They're so cute." Wilson rested his chin on the edge of the couch, his grin lopsided and a little foolish. "Fluffy and fat and cute. Chewing on your fingers and doing their business everywhere. Just like real puppies and human babies. When are you having puppies, Nate?"

"I'm young yet," Nathan's petting hand froze briefly, and Erik glanced up over the edge of the map; Nathan's expression hadn't changed, but an edge of inexplicable tension was briefly cut through his scent. Then the petting resumed, even as Wilson carefully tickled under Charles' chin, seemingly oblivious.

"I bet they'll be really cute. Small gray fluffballs. Blue eyes like their mommy. Or Daddy. Or whatever the terminology is, sometimes you guys give me a headache. D'aww. They'll be really fluffy, I know it."

"Your brain's melting again, Wade."

"Shut _up_ , I'll just shoot something defenceless later to make up for the hit to my machismo." Wilson scowled. "I'm having a vulnerable moment here. I mean, Arctus are only cute when they're babies, anyway, so I might as well start early. Afterwards, something goes wrong up there." Wilson tapped briefly at his temple. "They end up thinking that they're better than everyone else. Present company excepted, probably." Wilson added, unrepentantly, as Charles blinked at him. "I like you already. Admittedly, only because there are potential fluffballs involved and I have this fluffball weakness that's a mile wide. Otherwise I'd have told Nate's daddy to let you guys screw yourselves."

Erik growled softly from the armchair, rumbling and tonal with warning, but Nathan merely let out a low exhalation. "Wade, we've talked about this."

"Oh yeah." Wilson shrugged. "I didn't forget. Neither did I forget what they said to you when you met that one, whatshisface, Arthur Frost, that last time. How you're _almost_ adequate, or whatever the fuck it was. I don't buy this human thoughts in wolf form make them superior schtick. I mean, if I was a wolf with human thoughts, I'd spend my wolf time finding ways to pee on people I didn't like. Advanced karmic behavior."

"You do that anyway," Nathan said dryly.

"Yeah, yeah. Sound me out for being shallow." Wilson tickled under Charles' chin, his eyes hard. "At least I'm not a haughty S.O.B. with a pole up my ass."

Startled by the heat in Wilson's tone, Charles recognised the uncomfortable, sudden curl of tension within him for the guilt that it was. Wilson was right, here, and Emma was wrong. Judging other werewolves, judging _Erik_ , because he was part instinct, part _other_ , was at best hypocritical, at worst utter conceit. It did not make him, or Emma, or Raven - _better_ people. Humanity, Charles should have understood all along, was a tenuous concept, defined not so much by genetics or by traits but by intentions and actions.

At the very least, he shouldn't have immediately written off Erik; even someone fully human could have reacted the way Erik did from an invasion of his home. Charles should have tried compromise, reaching out rather than shutting Erik away and making them both miserable. If he wanted to change anything at all, about themselves, about werewolves in general, he would have to learn how to teach, not to alienate.

Grateful for the revelation, Charles leaned forward to lick a playful stripe up Wilson's cheek, causing the human to sputter and laugh, delighted, sinking strong fingers into Charles' scruff and mussing the fur. "Hey, hey, all right," Wilson grinned at him, "Maybe you're not all too bad. Or maybe it's just white fur plus blue eyes that drive you people off the deep bend of assholery... hey! That's enough," Wilson chuckled, as Charles licked his forehead, "I've told you, you've already got a free pass from me because of the potential fluffballs, Xavier, there's no need to make nice-"

"Charles," Erik growled, his voice rough, as though angry, and Wilson snorted.

"Well, _someone's_ jealous. Look what you've done, now you've made your hubby angry at me. If I were you," Wilson turned to address Erik, blandly, "And I had Arctus superthoughts, I'd be looking for a way to stealth pee on me in a hilarious way."

"You're obsessed," Nathan's tone of rebuke seemed laced with faint amusement.

"Hey man, that thing you guys produce, it _stains_ like nobody's business. It's comedy gold. Pun intended."

Charles snorted, slipping off the touch and hopping a little heavily into Erik's lap, jaws parting in a silent laugh at Erik's blink of surprise, licking over his mouth affectionately before settling over Erik's long legs, muzzle resting on the plush armrest. Erik let out a low, soft sound, almost inaudible, like the wake of a sob or a shallow breath, a puzzle piece slotting back into place, and stroked shaky, long fingers over his fur, splayed over his spine, the map temporarily forgotten.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan had lost a brother to the First Sons' raid, years ago. He intends to lose none further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for fuzzy science, as usual.

V.

The full moon came and went without the appearance of any hunters at all, let alone an attack. Erik didn't share Charles' obvious relief in the morning, seated at the dining table with Charles' muzzle resting lightly over his thigh. There would be at least three more full moons to the end of Charles' term, and Erik was uncomfortably aware of his reliance on the other two Packs for Charles' safety. Nathan Summers had struck him as someone to be trusted, at least as far as his blood feud with the First Sons went, but the Frosts remained an enigma.

Erik had no choice but to accept their aid for now, but the situation had to be temporary. He'd have to learn how to defend their territory, accept other wolves into their Pack, perhaps, or employ a handful of competent, trusted humans. Erik would have to swallow his pride and ask Dartmoor about it; as unstable as Wilson had seemed at first, Erik didn't doubt that he was an asset. Other Packs would be looking to ingratiate, if only because Charles had a fair chance of birthing pups with Arctus blues or _dirus_ traits. And as much as he didn't like it, Erik would probably have to try and play them off against each other, at least until they had a solid enough foothold in Westchester.

"If it turns out that you guys have already killed the whole lot of them that night," Wilson was saying indistinctly, through a huge mouthful of toast and peanut butter, "I'm going to be _really_ disappointed, seeing as we flew all the way here."

Emma continued carefully buttering her toast, ostensibly ignoring the human seated at the table at Charles' insistence. The other werewolves in the Arctus retinue, as usual, had politely deferred, including McCoy, when Charles had looked towards them, and although Summers' expression didn't change, Wilson had smirked lazily, all sardonic humor as he slouched into his seat opposite Raven. Erik hadn't given the evident class structure much thought until now; other Packs, including his old one, had contained layers of structures based on rights earned by birth and/or combat. His old Pack had been fairly informal about it, but a formalised set of priority structures wasn't unheard of.

After McCoy's words, however, Erik had looked at the Arctus structure with a new, wary eye. Raven and Emma were at the head of it, with all the other werewolves deferring to them, even the large, competent red, Azazel, who in a normal Pack would likely have earned his way into a higher strata by now. Raven was smaller than Azazel was, and though she seemed like she would handle well in a fight, Erik didn't think that she could best Azazel, or Janus, or Carter, or most of the other wolves that the Frosts seemed to treat as _servants_ , no different from their human retainers. That was not the way that werewolves treated others in their own Pack, regardless of strata - or at least, it hadn't been, in Erik's old Pack - and he found it somewhat unnerving.

"There should be a holding facility near here, or a movable base of operations," Nathan agreed. "That was how they used to operate. Captives would be transported to a larger, secure base."

"Capture-study," Erik recalled, narrowing his eyes, lips curled in distaste.

Nathan, however, glanced at him calmly, then at Charles. "The First Sons is a charity-funded non-government organisation, looking for a general cure for cancer. Many of its members are volunteers with family members sick with terminal cancers. All those men you killed, for example."

"Linner's daughter," Raven confirmed, carefully slicing up a piece of bacon. "Final stage stomach cancer. For a small bookstore owner, he's managed to support multiple rounds of chemotherapy, top of the line drugs, experimental treatment and an A-grade room in one of the best hospitals in New York. We're tracing the money trail from his bank accounts. But it makes you think, doesn't it?" Raven's smile, however, was inscrutable, her eyes dangerous.

Erik had to agree with her sentiment, even as he felt Charles tense against his leg, relaxing only when Erik pushed fingers into his scruff, stroking him soothingly. "They attacked us, so we killed them."

"I like how he thinks," Wilson announced, slathering maple syrup over his pancakes. "It's so unashamedly illegal."

"I'm not condoning their actions," Nathan said mildly, the ridged, unhealthy bruised-red of his wound starkly unpleasant in the morning daylight, "I'm merely trying to explain why the First Sons will keep coming at us, as long as they can afford to. Most, if not all of them, are personally invested in the venture."

"Don't take it personally," Wilson said, with a sharp smile, "Humans experiment on other humans too - I hear there's this double act going on in Tuskegee. And on apes. And on farm animals and dogs and rats and stuff. It's non-discriminatory. We've got this _thing_ about finding out how things tick. Or how they react to 'new and improved' anti-aging facial cream."

"Dartmoor drove them out of England," Raven sipped at her coffee, elegant fingers splayed over the china. "How did you manage that?"

"Lots of explosives," Wilson said, dreamily, a handful of toast arrested on its way to his mouth. "Oh man. Such a great memory."

"One of their own had a change of heart. We managed to thoroughly destroy their operations." Nathan reached for another slice of toast, sounding meditative, "If I could do it again, I would have tried another way. One with fewer casualties."

"They cut your eye out," Erik said, incredulously. "And you would have tried 'another way'?"

"When those explosives went off, everyone in that compound died," Nathan said flatly, "The cleaning staff, the help, _everyone_. Because I was younger than I was, and wild with pain, I made the choice to lash out in anger. I regret that. Senseless murder only begets circles of violence."

Erik shook his head slowly, even as Emma arched an eyebrow, but it was Raven who spoke, sounding curious, "Then why are you here?"

"I'm looking for the director of the First Sons," Nathan said quietly, "He escaped the blast. His name is Nathaniel Essex. The First Sons is his brainchild - once we stop him, hopefully, you'll have no further trouble from them."

"I'll get Azazel to look into this Essex person," Raven nodded.

"Wade's not without resources in this side of the world. We've been doing our own investigations." Nathan finished his coffee. "We'll be discreet."

"Are you suggesting something?" Raven asked, though she grinned sleekly as she said it.

"This is the badlands, Miss Frost," Nathan retorted, "Not Ilulissat. You can't make bodies disappear by dumping them in the woods with bite wounds. The Americans have a rather different view of inexplicable homicide cases."

"It's because of all the deep fried butter sticks that they eat," Wilson piped in. "I suggest sulphuric acid. I know a man who knows a man who's a _wizard_ at it."

Emma rose from the table, dabbing at her mouth, and glided away with an air of imperious disdain, and once she left the dining room, Raven said dryly, "Janus took care of the bodies. We're not _that_ crude, human."

"Okay. Benefit of doubt, hereby extended," Wilson raised his hands palms up, briefly, "By the way, that Emma gal, is she having women's troubles, or something? Just so that I'm aware?"

"She just doesn't like you," Raven explained offhandedly, selecting a hard-boiled egg with studied discretion.

"That clears everything up, thanks. I'm sorry about spreading my human germs everywhere, or whatever it is that's ticking her off," Wilson said cheerfully. "Nate and I are going to head off to check a couple of leads. We'll be back at night. Does the house have a phone?"

Charles nodded automatically, against Erik's thigh. "It does." Erik rattled off the number, and Wilson mouthed it to himself a couple of times. "But it's unlisted, so I hope that you'd use it sparingly."

"No ordering in sandwiches and strippers, got it," Wilson smirked, even as Nathan cut in with a brisk, "We'll call to check in, if we have to move further afield. The full moon's over. With McCoy's alarms, traps, and the rosters I think that defending from further attacks won't be a problem at this stage."

Charles leaned up to nose at Nathan's left palm, then he glanced over silently at Wilson, looking worried. "Good hunting," Erik said, as Nathan carefully scratched behind Charles' ears.

5.0.

"And you're _sure_ that this is safe," Erik said again, flatly, sitting pressed against Charles on the cot and eyeing the array of machinery and consoles with open suspicion.

"Oh yes, Professor Ian Donald's _Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound_ was... ah, very enlightening," Hank was tinkering with the wiring of the sonographic instrument, the transducers aligned neatly against the ticking console. "I built a set in Ilulissat, but this is an improved version of that. I'll also like to think it's more advanced than anything that you can find in any private hospital. The medical imaging should be clear, it'll be in real time, and it'd be perfectly safe. I haven't managed to figure out how to get, ah, color, but I guess it's not really necessary."

Charles ignored Erik's muttered string of German invective, nosing through Hank's notes on the cot with interest. He understood at best a third of the concepts, and the wolf part of him found the entire matter somewhat alarming, but the Frosts, seated primly on the chaise lounge in the converted drawing room, seemed and smelled utterly unconcerned, and in the end, human curiosity won out over wolf instinct, yet again. Nathan and Wilson stood in the doorway, Wilson almost vibrating with excitement, and Nathan with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Hank's movements with vague curiosity.

They were well within the third month of his term, and there hadn't been any further skirmishes, at least, not at the mansion. Sometimes Wilson and Nathan were out for days, and when they returned the gunpowder scents seemed sharper than usual, but they said nothing about violence, and Charles wasn't entirely sure if it was polite to pry. Nathan seemed far too balanced, too certain of himself, too _dispassionate_ for a young man in his early twenties, as though losing his eye had broken something within him.

Whatever it was, at least Nathan agreed with Charles - more or less - on principles of unnecessary mayhem, and even if he did not agree with Charles on the point of pacifism, Charles supposed that it would take a far better man than most to take the loss of an eye and feel no hatred.

"I'm starting," Hank said, handing Erik a plastic transducer, connected to the console via a twisting length of insulated cable, which he held within thumb and forefinger with obvious distaste. "Now if you'd hold that there, Mister Lehnsherr, please, a little higher, perfect, and I'll be holding this here, and if someone could pull that switch for me, thank you, Mister Summers... and there we go," Hank added, a notch of clinical excitement to his voice, the transducers hovering around Charles' distended belly. Charles strained to look at the screen over Hank's back, where the buzzing black image abruptly flickered into a distorted streak of gray lines, then focused into a blurred, pulsing image of pale dips and misshapen masses, outlined in black.

Emma and Raven were peering at the screen, and Wilson was in tiptoes at the door, fingers clenched in the doorframe, Erik's free hand curled tight over his shoulder, then one of the masses seemed to twitch, turning gently, and now Charles could pick out the large head of a pup, with its smaller, curled frame, and the small tip of a tail, even as the second mass against it slowly swam into focus as Hank recalibrated a transducer.

"Two," Erik breathed, sounding numb, and Charles tore his eyes away from the screen to look at his mate.

Erik was pale, his eyes gleaming, as though with unshed tears, shoulders hunched, his entire frame bright with raw wonder and joy, and Charles nuzzled the underside of his arm, licking, until fingers squeezed his shoulders carefully, affectionately. He felt as though the last of his reservations about the entire matter of pregnancy had finally fallen away, stripped down by reality and the reflection of his mate's utter joy; watching the screen, it seemed as though the pups were no longer an uncomfortable, back-of-the mind abstraction, but a reality waiting to happen, and one that he now fully welcomed. _Mine_ , he thought, watching as the foetus on the left seemed to kick gently, even as he felt the faint movement within him, then as Erik chuckled softly, slipping his free hand down to rest just under Charles' ribs, he mentally corrected, _ours_.

"That's... kind of cute, I guess," Wilson said from the doorway, sounding uncertain. "In a creepy, black and white, silent film sort of way. I'm conflicted. There's no fluff involved. My brain doesn't process those comma-shaped things as puppies. No offense."

"Mister Summers, could you assist here please," Hank said, apologetically, and as Nathan knelt down to take hold of the transducers, Hank edged over to the console, typing furiously, until the printer plugged into the system began to whir. "Um, er, as you can see, that's two, and they seem, ah, perfectly normal and healthy. It's a bit early to tell the gender accurately," Hank frowned at the screen, "But we do have one here," Hank pointed at the foetus on the right, "That's rather noticeably bigger than the other."

" _Dirus_ , perhaps," Emma said from the chairs, relaxed again, her slim hands primly in her lap. "Congratulations, nephew."

Charles nodded excitedly at her in response, even as Hank switched off the ultrasound machine and collected the transducers, bustling around the printing spools. "We're still naming one after me, aren't we?" Raven piped up, with a wide smile, "Raven is a nice, unisex name."

"It's boring," Wilson cut in, "You guys are _werewolves_. You should be calling each other 'Fang', or 'Silverclaw', or 'Moonriver' or something, not shit like Tom, Dick or Harry."

"I know a Tom," Nathan said mildly, cross-legged beside the cot. "Caledon Pack."

" _Exactly_. I mean, the only werewolf with a kickass name is that old coot on the top of the Frost Pack-"

"His pre-Grandsire name is Ian," Raven interrupted, even as Emma snorted and rolled her eyes briefly. "In any case, we don't get names until our first shift. And before you ask further, Wilson, we have human names because only our human sides desire names. Names mean little to a wolf. For other Packs, of course," Raven added, a little absently. "Though I have to admit, 'Silverclaw' isn't that bad." At Charles' look of horror, Raven snickered. "It was a thought. I'll confirm the news with Arctus," she continued, then as Erik tensed beside Charles, she smiled, inscrutable again. "Because formal congratulations are in order, I believe."

Emma watched Raven carefully as she left the room, and looked towards Charles, her eyes briefly knowing before the gesture was shuttered away under her smooth mask, and she too rose to stalk out of the Lounge. Charles sighed, causing Nathan to look up at him sharply and Hank to duck his head, and Erik shifted back to hug him, hands moving restlessly over the ridge of his spine as Charles nuzzled his shoulder.

"I'm beginning to think that I just missed some sort of non-human memo there," Wilson quipped from the door, his eyes narrowed slightly, and Nathan's eyes were flicking between Hank and the doorway.

"My sire mentioned something to me in passing," Nathan said carefully. "He told me to keep watch on more than just the First Sons. Is there going to be a problem?"

Charles shook his head firmly, even as Erik's arms tightened around him. They'd all spent more than a month now with the Frosts, and he had no reason to suspect that they meant him ill harm. If they did, they could easily have kidnapped Charles from the start, rather than heed his wishes, stay on in the mansion and defend them both; as fearsome as Erik was in _dirus_ form, he would have been outnumbered by the Frosts and their entourage. Erik's paranoia was unsettling.

"All right," Nathan acknowledged, though he glanced at the doorway again. "But if you'll have us, we'll stay until we're certain that there won't be any problems."

Charles curled up to lick Nathan's cheek playfully, and to their left, Hank exhaled loudly, as though in relief. Wilson raised a hand. "Hello? Still not getting the memo here? Please take pity on Exhibit 'A', Stupid Human?"

"There might be trouble. Outside of the hunters. With the puppies," Nathan elaborated, when Wilson still looked blank.

"What? Where?" Wilson's pistols were in his hands in an eye blink, and even as Charles huffed, startled, the mercenary scowled. "Seriously, Nate. I get jumpy. Don't spring shit like that on me."

"Put your guns away, Wade. We'll keep our eyes open," Nathan promised, as Charles nudged him again in a silent expression of thanks. "We've got some good leads, but we'll stay close if you prefer."

"Found anything last week?" Erik's tone was gruff, and he didn't look up.

"Nothing concrete. There's a facility in the badlands, that much's for certain, but it's not in Westchester. You know that, anyway, I hear Azazel found that rented warehouse on the outskirts in the industrial zone, with that reinforced truck and the steel cages. That's how they transport captures. I don't have a definite trace on the location, but I did run up to something... possibly unfortunate."

"Which is?" Erik asked, looking up with a frown.

"It's not confirmed, which is why I haven't told the others as yet. I don't want to start a panic." Nathan said, unruffled by the edge in Erik's tone. "But it does look from what we've found that the First Sons have government backing of some sort."

"That's not... normal," Hank cut in uneasily, after a long pause, even as Charles made a querying yip. "Trying to convince other humans that we exist tends to be an uphill battle, let alone a human government. That's not good."

"But this is deep fried _butter_ country," Wilson interjected brightly, even as Nathan continued, "I haven't been able to confirm it. But if we can," he added, thoughtfully, "This might have larger repercussions than just for you and your territory, Lehnsherr."

"If more humans start hunting us, if their governments do," Erik mused, frowning, "We'll be wiped out, wherever we are."

 _Recognition could be a benefit_ , Charles thought, looking around vainly for a scrap of paper, and finding nothing. _Surely-_

Nathan seemed to read his mind; he was already shaking his head. "I think I know what you want to say, Xavier. Maybe in the future, it'd be possible, but right now, especially in the badlands, it won't be. Not when our blood holds a potential cure to many of their terminal diseases. Even the most rational human being will turn into a hunter if their loved ones sicken and they think that we're the cure."

"And as to appealing to the government," Nathan added, as Charles opened his mouth, "Wade mentioned it earlier, but I don't think you're aware of it. There's a secret government initiative in Tuskegee. The study of African-American men with syphilis, on the pretext of providing them with 'health care'. The subjects are allowed to die, when they could be cured. As much as I'll like to consider it, I don't think humanity is ready for the rest of us."

Charles sighed, out loud, and glanced at Erik, who met his gaze unflinchingly, jaw set. _Peace is not a pipe dream_ , Charles wanted to say, _not a concept to be plucked out and derided by those who think that it can't be possible. It needs work. It needs faith. And it won't happen unless you start trying. No one, anywhere, has won peace without struggle. And we need this. We can't live the way we are, pretending that the world outside doesn't exist-_

"Can we talk about this," Erik said softly, carefully, "When you're actually able to talk?" His lips were thinned and white, and there was a plea in Erik's eyes that his pride wouldn't allow him to voice. Grudgingly, Charles backed down, leaning up to lick over Erik's mouth, and felt the arms curled around him relaxing.

"I think that my teeth are rotting," Wilson groaned. "Doctor, give me one of those creepy black potential puppy photos before I throw up in my mouth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may timeskip a little. Charles-with-no-voice is a little trying to write. Also, for those people looking for a blow by blow scene with all the gory details of a birth, you'll be disappointed. :/


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble never seemed far on the horizon, in the badlands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh. I know I should be trying to close up rather than add more characters. This way the fic will just get longer -_-;

VI.

Charles was beginning to take longer naps, and seemed to alternate between being snappishly irritable or apologetically affectionate during his waking hours, restlessly bored and clearly frustrated with his now-inconvenient bulk. Erik carefully endured it, bottling his temper and feeling, grudgingly, somewhat grateful to Dartmoor for Wilson after all; for all that the human was annoying at the best of times, he seemed to have a hidden talent for entertaining Charles.

"It's practice," Wilson explained, when Erik made a gruff observation, as he shuffled a deck of cards, seated cross-legged before the couch, Charles watching his quick hands avidly, "It's the only way I'll be let near the fluffballs, otherwise. Got to find some way to suck up to their mommies." He flipped the cards out into a bright red fan. "Pick a card, Xavier."

Wilson was sporting a set of fresh, still raw scrapes on his cheek, and he was in a manic good humor that Nathan wasn't reflecting; the young werewolf was hunched into an armchair, Azazel's reports in his lap, his single eye distant and fixed on the ceiling. It seemed that a lead had come to a dead end in Harlem - rather explosively.

Charles pawed carefully at a card, and Wilson held it up for Charles to see, before turning it over to show Erik. A Jack of Hearts. "Now I don't know what card that is," Wilson said blithely, fanning out the cards again, "But you'll see that all the cards in this deck are distinct. And we'll put this one under your paw, so you know I can't get hold of it. How was the last creepy maybe puppy checkup? Nate and I missed it, what with being on the road and bleeding out in a rented car and all."

"It was fine." One of the pups was a male, the smaller one; the other Hank had reluctantly declared himself uncertain, shooting worried glances all the while between Raven and Erik. "Shouldn't be too long now."

"At least we're nearly past the last full moon of the term," Nathan said, from the armchair, without looking down. "Essex has been careful, but the First Sons are still very much alive. The team sent to the mansion were green. Newcomers."

Erik nodded warily; he hadn't liked the sound of that, when Nathan had voiced it last night upon his return, but Azazel and Janus had concurred from their own investigations. The team of ten hadn't been expecting heavy resistance. It didn't, however, explain why the First Sons hadn't struck again, when they'd had more than a couple of months to get organised. The uncertainty was frustrating, and it was obvious that Nathan was growing restless.

"Oh, cheer up, Xavier," Wilson cut the deck, seemingly at random, then abruptly fanned out the cards again. "Everything's sure to come up Aces." Slipped in the fan of red at four equidistant points were the four Aces in the deck. Charles barked, wagging his tail in delight, even as Erik snorted. He'd never been particularly impressed by tricks.

"And here," Wilson fanned the deck again, cutting it absently, "In the pocket of your unimpressed hubby, is this your card?"

Charles barked again, tongue lolling out, at the sight of the Jack of Hearts that Wilson had 'drawn' from Erik's pocket. "And under your paw, because we need a bit of fun in our lives, what with everyone else here so dour and grim," Wilson edged aside Charles' paw, "The pair of Jokers."

It was simple sleight of hand, if cunningly wrought, and Erik absently caught Charles' tail as he wagged it again. "I've got a coin trick," Wilson suggested, "It's a good one, it ends up with me having more money in the end..."

The mercenary trailed off as Erik straightened and Nathan frowned, both of them picking up the faint crunch of gravel in an even rumble, coming up to the driveway. From the French Lounge, they had a fair view of the foyer, and as they watched, a sleek black car pulled up, disgorging two heavyset men in black suits, and a woman with a thick mane of dark brown hair, in a pencil skirt, suit and blouse, glancing around with the controlled air of someone in the business of either law enforcement or murder.

Janus instantly blocked her path, even as one of the werewolves darted away, going for Raven and Emma. The woman flashed a badge, unperturbed. "I'm Agent MacTaggert, CIA. I'm investigating the disappearance of... _you_ ," she said suddenly, with a sharp frown.

"Oh fuck," Wilson said, at the same time, blinking and scrambling to his feet.

Erik shot Charles a sharp glare, exerting a faint pressure as he pressed a palm down over Charles' shoulders in a signal to stay put, and glanced over at Nathan, who nodded imperceptibly. Getting to his feet, Erik stalked over to the door, thumbs hooked in his belt. "May I help you?"

"You're harboring a dangerous man there, Mister...?"

"Lehnsherr," Erik offered, flatly. "And I'll pray that you'll cast no aspersions on my guest, Agent MacTaggert."

"Your 'guest' is suspected of at least five counts of arson, multiple counts of wilful property damage and-"

"You can't prove anything," Wilson said cheerfully, from behind him, "I'm clean."

"You're a professional, of course you are," MacTaggert shot back, "May I come in?"

"I prefer that you'll first state your business clearly." Erik growled, with a glance behind MacTaggert at the other Agents. He couldn't sense any silver, at least, not from here, which was a relief. If a gunfight broke out, Nathan could get Charles to safety, and a pack of werewolves could easily dispose of a few unprepared humans.

MacTaggert narrowed her eyes. "We're tracking down a missing persons report. His family is very anxious. Are any of you familiar with a man named Albert Linner?"

"Owner of Searchlight books," Erik shrugged, carefully schooling his expression. From his peripheral vision, Janus' face also remained unchanged. Good. "I have a few of his books. Why?"

"What about Charles Francis Xavier?" MacTaggert planted her fists on her hips, and her lips curled sharply when Erik blinked at her, startled despite himself. "Familiar name too?"

"He's the owner of this mansion," Erik felt his tone roughen despite himself, warily. "What do you want with him?"

"It's not a big town, hereabouts," MacTaggert stared him down, "First, Linner goes missing, around when people start reporting an influx of strangers, and then the owner of this mansion, one Charles Xavier, a polite young man who makes trips to town thrice a week like clockwork, stops visiting. And now his usually empty mansion seems to be full of guests. _Interesting_ guests, including a well-known mercenary."

"Duly flattered," Wilson called out.

MacTaggert ignored him. "I don't know about you, _Mister_ Lehnsherr, but that seems rather suspicious to me, don't you think?"

Erik saw red.

Baring his teeth over the roar of blood in his ears, he took a step forward. "If you _think_ that I would _ever_ -"

Emma's grip on his elbow was cool, like ice, and it bruised. " _Dear_ Erik. The weather has been most unfortunately hot; it is making you most indisposed. Allow me. I must commend you, Agent MacTaggert, for being so diligent regarding the disappearance of a bookshop owner. Most remarkable." Emma's eyes were flint hard, and her tone inflectionless. Raven was nowhere to be seen, though Erik could pick up the faint scrape of booted feet on the floor above. _Eyes on high_.

"We all have our duties to the law," MacTaggert didn't back down, even in the face of Emma's unflinching stare. "And you are?"

"My name is of no concern to you, nor are the premises. You are trespassing on private property. I suggest that you leave." Emma replied smoothly, "Return with a warrant, perhaps."

"I will," MacTaggert scowled. "This was me trying to be _nice_ , lady."

"The sentiment is appreciated." Emma said, but didn't move, and after a wire-thin, breathless moment, MacTaggert exhaled loudly, turning on her heel. The agents climbed back into the car, and Erik watched it wheel back down the driveway, his gaze narrowed and hard, jerking his arm out of Emma's grip.

"They'll be back."

"I'll make a call to Mayhew. He may be able to sort this out," Emma said, with clear distaste, stalking away towards the phone in the French Lounge, picking up the receiver and dialling briskly. Erik headed quickly back to a stunned-looking Charles, who stared at Erik, then at the doorway, then at Emma, before his jaws parted in a wolf's approximation of helpless, wry laughter.

"I _know_ , right?" Wilson was smirking as well, still seated on the floor, then he looked up to Erik with a vague gesture at Charles. "First time as a murder suspect? Con _grat_ ulations. I always find the experience thoroughly stimulating. Sort of like a double toffee banana split topped up with napalm."

Erik scowled at them both, still strung out with adrenaline and utter fury. That woman had _dared_ to suggest that he would harm _Charles_. "This is _serious_ , Charles." Packs tended to try and steer clear of government agencies, let alone large, well-organised _intelligence_ agencies.

"Oh sure," Wilson piped in, "I mean, the next time MacTaggert comes back - and she's a ball cracker, that one - we'll just tell her, that 'nice, polite young man' is perfectly fine, he just happens to be a pregnant female werewolf at this point in time, and it'll _all_ be sorted out." Charles smacked Wilson across the head with a paw, and Wilson protested, "It was _just_ a thought. Look. Seriously, Lehnsherr, if you're that worried, I'll just hop out for a moment and get rid of them. Happy? And I wasn't asking for your opinion, you peacenik," Wilson added sourly, at Charles' instantly horrified expression. " I won't get caught or anything."

"No. That won't solve the problem." Erik rubbed a palm over his face. At worst, it'd wildly exacerbate it. "We'll see whether Mayhew has any solutions."

6.0.

Mayhew had no immediate solutions, only stopgap measures; he promised to delay issue of a warrant as long as possible through his 'sources', and then strongly and apologetically recommended a 'quick trip out', preferably into the Continent, where presumably government intelligence agencies had less of an interest in the mysterious disappearances of bookshop owners and millionaire recluses. Charles had to refuse - instinct told him that long distance travel was going to be a very bad idea, at this point. Past the next, last full moon of his term, the birth could be anytime. Erik had concurred, with a pointed glance at the Frosts, as though he suspected them of complicity of some sort. Thankfully, his aunt and his cousin had ignored Erik's lapse of courtesy.

Unfortunately, Mayhew's delays didn't last long; Agent MacTaggert returned within a few days, sleek and prim in a gray suit, brandishing an equally sleek search warrant, backed up by two more cars of suited Agents. Erik had wanted to fight back; had suggested it, the night before, but Charles had vetoed the motion, backed surprisingly by both Nathan and Emma, and grudgingly, Erik had conceded, after Charles had painstakingly pointed out again that travel was not advisable but would be highly probable if they murdered a large gang of CIA Agents, and dragged Hank over to agree with him.

As such, all the current inhabitants of the mansion had been marched outside, onto the driveway, watched over by a pair of Agents while the rest combed their house. Charles sat beside Erik on the gravel, occasionally nosing his thigh reassuringly as Erik scowled at the occasional glimpses of Agents on the grounds, his hands clenching and unclenching. Even Raven seemed tense; of them all, only Nathan and Emma were visibly untroubled.

Eventually, when the sun was a little higher in the sky, and chairs had been fetched for Raven, Emma, and a few of the other female staff, MacTaggert returned, shading her eyes, her lips thinned as she glanced between Emma and Erik. "So, which one of you _lovely_ people runs this circus?"

Emma straightened in her chair, but Erik had already growled, "Are you finished?"

"Investigations in town indicate that recently, Charles Xavier has been accompanied by a tall, European man, broad shouldered, let's see here, common description," MacTaggert thumbed through a notepad, "being a 'right cold bastard', to use local vernacular. That's you, isn't it, Mister Lehnsherr?"

Erik ignored Wilson's snicker and Raven's smirk. "Is there a point to this?"

"My point, sir, is that preliminary investigations indicate that at some point, possibly a couple of months ago, the mansion seems to have been used as some sort of target practice course," MacTaggert shot back. "It's a grand old place, so the bits which have been plastered back over are _terribly_ obvious, not to mention that you and your friends missed the odd shell casing or so, further on the garden grounds. And the way there's been traps and some sort of proximity alarm system strung up all over the woods at the back of the mansion seems _rather_ paranoid, doesn't it?"

Charles could see Hank wince from the edge of his vision, and he rubbed his cheek against Erik's thigh. Erik took a deep breath, then forced it out from behind clenched teeth. "We had some bad experiences with armed burglars, Agent MacTaggert."

"And no police report was ever filed, on these burglars of yours and their attack on the mansion?"

Erik met MacTaggert's gaze unflinchingly. "We drove them off and they never returned. The police have more than enough work to contend with, and we're more than capable of taking care of ourselves."

"And I'm to believe that Charles Xavier has gone on a vacation or something, and has left his house in the hands of strangers?"

"I am his aunt," Emma cut in smoothly, and at MacTaggert's arched eyebrow, added, "Emma Frost. I am his mother's sister."

"Raven Frost," Raven introduced herself. "Charles' cousin. Westchester is such a _delightfully_ backward place to have a summer holiday."

"Relatives. Right." MacTaggert said dryly, in a tone of clear disbelief, though she took a few studious notes. "And am I able to contact Xavier, or is he conveniently someplace difficult to reach and lacking a phone line?"

Charles sighed, as Wilson sniggered again, but Emma said, smoothly, "I have no doubt that he will return in fine form within a month or so. Do feel free to check in with us again at that point."

"What does the CIA want?" Erik growled, clearly losing patience with the verbal sniping. "Surely a missing persons case is better handled by the local police?"

"Linner had a few interesting friends who are of a matter of curiosity to the CIA, Mister Lehnsherr," MacTaggert tapped the tip of her pen briefly against her lips. "I don't suppose that you've heard of the First Sons?"

Erik's expression didn't change, but Charles could sense the tension spiking, nothing that Azazel and a few of the others had carefully planted their feet on the ground, ready to strike if necessary. Even _Hank_ had hunched over, as though ready to spring. "Some sort of local cult, perhaps?"

"Also the last known associated organisation on file with one Wade Wilson," MacTaggert's gaze swung over to Wilson, pointing the tip of her pen at him. "Funny thing, you were last marked code gray, Wilson. One of our Agents made a note that you were dying of final stage brain cancer and leukemia in a Polish hospital."

Wilson smiled sharply, bouncing on his feet. "Miraculous recovery?"

Erik took in a sharp breath, even as Charles blinked; but from the way Nathan didn't react at all to the revelation... _Wilson_ had been the inside man, who'd had a change of heart. Wilson was proof that their blood was a cure for cancer.

"'Course, that was before you were then spotted in Dartmoor," MacTaggert continued coolly, "And then, as things happen to do around you, there was an inexplicable and thoroughly deadly explosion and you disappeared. Along with one Nathaniel Essex."

"We are not associated with Essex," Nathan said flatly.

"Aren't you? Here's how we're looking at it," MacTaggert glanced down at her notes. "Essex is wanted by Interpol on a variety of crimes ranging from kidnapping to illegal medical practices, fraud and attempted murder. He has an M.O. of attaching himself to the rich, convincing them that he can cure them of their diseases, and then using their money to fuel his 'research' and his illegal activities, bleeding them dry, and then moving on to the next sap down the line."

"Europe gets too hot to hold him, and Essex comes down to Westchester. Affluent American suburb, clear potential for the marks that he likes. He somehow hears of this lonely young man named Charles Xavier, a wealthy bachelor, living by himself in the woods, and he ingratiates himself to Linner by paying for Linner's daughter's medical expenses. Linner's a good friend of Xavier, by all reports, and eventually he introduces his benefactor to Xavier. Essex then places a plant in Xavier's household in the form of Mister Lehnsherr."

"Presumably, Xavier has some sort of disease that makes him a social recluse, Essex offers to cure it, and squirrels him away somewhere or kills him, and like his previous M.O.s, his plant has already acquired rights under a power of attorney or has already inherited all of the funds. Linner's no longer necessary, so he's disposed of. Essex isn't particularly popular; there's a gunfight at the house, possibly hit-men employed by other families that he'd scammed in Europe, but you lot manage to drive them off. Not surprisingly, given Wilson's reputation. With me so far?"

Erik had turned an interesting shade of red, and both Emma and Raven were watching MacTaggert with the fascination of people watching a train wreck in the process of unfolding. And then Wilson began to laugh, and Erik managed a shaky, furious, "You... _you_..."

Charles hastily butted Erik on the thigh, then he reached forward with a paw, scratching onto the gravel, in large, block letters, _THE TRUTH, ERIK_.

"Did your dog just write-" MacTaggert began slowly, but Erik growled, low in his throat, glancing between Charles' words and Charles himself, then he took in a shaky, long breath as Charles carefully underlined the text.

"That's never a good idea," Emma said dismissively, even as Erik muttered, "They won't believe it, anyway."

"Believe what?" MacTaggert asked, still staring at the block letters. "That's a good trick."

Erik met Charles' plaintive stare, his jaw clenched set, a muscle twitching, his eyes dark and wild with suppressed anger and violence, fingers curled into his palms, and instead of the blunt refusal Charles expected, Erik asked, "Are you sure, Charles?"

Charles nodded firmly, patting at the words with a paw, ignoring the mutter from the agents behind MacTaggert and the whispers between the Frosts. He was sure. Lies would get them nowhere, not when the CIA had already come to such a conclusion. And MacTaggert's reaction would be good to observe. At the very least, Charles would have a gauge as to whether humanity would truly react with hysteria to their existence. At worst, if she showed no surprise or if it was feigned, they'd know how far Nathan's suspicion of 'government backing' ran.

He couldn't voice this to Erik, however, and could only hold his stare, waiting patiently, hopefully, until finally Erik closed his eyes, with a loud breath, as though preparing himself to make a leap of faith. A little startled, and more than a little gratified, Charles blinked, his heart warm and tight in his chest. If he were human, he would have kissed Erik there and then, heedless of all the people around them.

"What are you doing, Lehnsherr?" MacTaggert asked sharply, when Erik shucked his sports jacket and, as an afterthought, pulled off his turtleneck.

"You wanted the truth." Erik said coldly. "The First Sons hunt our kind, Agent MacTaggert. They hunt us and capture us for study. Others like them will kill us if they can. It's a continuous problem that we prefer to keep to ourselves, rather than to attempt to refer it on to humans."

"'Humans'? 'Our kind'?" MacTaggert repeated.

"You'll see." Erik dropped the turtleneck on the jacket, with a final, hard glance at Charles, and at Charles' nod, shifted forms. MacTaggert let out a soft gasp at the blur of unreality, then she took a step back, pale and wide-eyed, going for the gun within her suit, when the dire wolf shook off jeans and underthings, padding over to mouth affectionately over Charles' muzzle, ignoring the shouts of surprise from the humans.

"Predictable," Emma said, in disdain, staring down the barrels of all the drawn weapons with contempt.

"Stand down, men. I said _stand down_ ," MacTaggert barked, as a thickset Agent to her right refused to lower his gun. She held out her empty palms, slowly, then she breathed out. "Jesus _Christ_. You're all...? _Jesus Christ_."

"Perhaps we could discuss this further indoors?" Raven suggested dryly, as Charles rubbed his cheek lovingly under Erik's jaw. "Over some refreshments?"

"I... ah... all right," MacTaggert said, still staring at Erik in astonishment. "Wait. You called that dog... er... wolf... Charles."

"Yes. This is my nephew, Charles Xavier. He is one of us." Emma reached forward, scratching Charles behind his ears.

"But it's... he's... she's... _female_. And _pregnant_."

Charles sighed out aloud. It was going to be a _long_ day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moira has always wanted to be a CIA Agent. She's never let anything get in her way - not her mother's worry, not her father's preferences, not the jeers and jibes from the others as she'd forged on through to qualify. She needs just one, big break, and no one will question her choices again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Palalife and Victoria have done some gorgeous fanart! :) Thank you so much. I've been having a very bad week, and seeing those pics have cheered me up.  
> Click to see [[Palalife's art](http://palalife.tumblr.com/post/9324467727/as-my-half-promise-yesterday-heres-erik-with)] and [[Victoria](http://thats-fassynating.tumblr.com/post/9346877257/so-if-you-havent-just-go-and-read-skin-deep)]'s, on tumblr. ;3

VII.

MacTaggert made several phone calls, including a memorable shouting match with Mayhew, then she proceeded to have a brief, agitated discussion with the other Agents in the foyer, complete with sharp gestures and sidelong glances at the werewolves. In the end, she called them to the dining room, and paced around at the head of the table as Erik and the rest seated themselves with varying degrees of suspicion and reluctance; the Agents huddled in a group in the foyer, watching them all like spooked rabbits.

"I'm beginning to expect that I'd be woken up by an alarm clock at any minute. Hell, I wish that was gonnae happen," MacTaggert began by muttering, her native Scottish burr emerging briefly in her tone. "I'm going to have tae... _to_ send one of you over to Langley with Agent Marsh. The Director's never going to believe me, otherwise. He'd get into that goddamned spiel about sending a woman to do a man's job-"

"I'll go," Nathan said instantly, and Wilson piped in, " _And_ me. I haven't been inside Langley for _years_."

MacTaggert scowled openly at Wilson. "It's years too fucking soon again, Wilson."

" _Ohhh_. Pretty lady said a bad word."

"Nathan," Erik began, with a frown. Nathan Summers was not yet adult in age, and Dartmoor had placed him here out of good will - Erik couldn't out of good conscience allow him to go, and into CIA custody at that. If anything happened to Nathan, Erik didn't have the resources to execute an extraction. "Not you."

"Agent MacTaggert suggested that the CIA has a file on Nathaniel Essex. I'll like to see that." Nathan told MacTaggert at her cautious nod, absently rubbing at one of the knife scars under his eye. "If it's possible."

"That can be arranged," MacTaggert nodded, after a short, thoughtful pause, glancing back at the pack of Agents, a couple of whom nodded slowly in turn. "Yeah. Marsh will see to it personally. We could share intel."

"Let him go if he wants." Emma said dismissively, and Wilson clapped his hands together in mock delight. "Field trip!"

"Just don't blow things up again, Wilson." MacTaggert said, with a deep sigh, and jerked her head over at Nathan as he rose to his feet. One of the Agents detached himself from the huddled pack, nodding curtly at Nathan and leading the way towards the foyer. Erik glanced over at Charles, who shot him a worried look, but otherwise didn't object - his mate nodded in Wilson's direction, then looked back up at Erik, his bright blue eyes wide and trusting.

Erik relaxed a fraction, reluctantly, understanding Charles' point. At the worst, if something happened, Wilson would be there, and as annoying as the mercenary was, he was clearly loyal, and just as clearly dangerous. "And now?"

"I'm not entirely convinced that you're all squeaky clean," MacTaggert crossed her arms. "But I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt. In the meantime, you're all under house arrest for your own safety. If Essex is really after your balls, then we'll get him whenever he comes for the lot of you again. Or if he doesn't come personally, which is possible, then we might catch a few smaller fish that would lead us right to the big one."

Erik glowered at the decidedly petite CIA agent. "If we'd wanted to, we could get rid of all of you right now, without any casualties. We don't need your 'help'."

"Yeah? Let's dress it down, then," MacTaggert retorted, "As the CIA keeping an eye on a handful of Code Orange individuals until the situation's sorted itself through."

"And when would that be?" Erik growled, bristling at the prospect of a continued invasion of his territory, and by non-affiliated _humans_ , at that, ignoring Charles' deep sigh, beside his knee.

"Seeing Charles Xavier - in human form - would be a good start. I think I can make a logical guess why that would be a problem right now," MacTaggert added, as Erik opened his mouth, "So we'll kip here and wait it out. Doesn't look like it'd be long, would it? Or we'll wait for further orders from the Director, if any. Questions?"

"What's keeping us from throwing the lot of you out of our house?" Erik asked, with deceptive calm, temper stretched wire-thin, then he added an irritable, " _Charles_ ," when Charles shook his head at him and pointedly padded over to sit down heavily beside MacTaggert, panting happily when MacTaggert cautiously scratched behind his ears.

"Looks like we've just received an invite from the actual owner of the premises. Probable owner," MacTaggert added, rubbing under Charles' chin as he thumped his tail on the carpet. "But since he's been the most civilised of the lot of you so far, I'm willing to thoroughly consider that possibility."

She turned, gesturing at the Agents behind her, who nodded and trotted off, spreading out. "Who's the wiseass who set up the perimeter alarm? Well? Don't be shy. You? Good," MacTaggert said briskly, when Hank cautiously raised a palm. "You'll give Douglas a look over your layout, just so that we don't get tied up in each other's crosshairs. Everyone else can just... carry on. We'll chat when I have more questions, so do _please_ make yourselves available."

Emma's expression didn't change, but she seemed to radiate condescension as she rose from her chair and glided away towards the stairway to the second floor, Raven on her heels, and the other werewolves hesitated for a moment before slinking away from the dining room. Seemingly satisfied, ears flicking back and forth, Charles ambled back to Erik's heels, rubbing his cheek absently against his knees before sitting down again at his side.

"He'll only be a few more weeks, won't he?" MacTaggert seemed unfazed by Erik's annoyance. "Once we can verify that he's Xavier, you won't have that hanging over your heads, at least. And if Essex is a no-show, I'll be out of your hair before you know it."

"You are all here at Charles' sufferance, and by that only," Erik said coldly, annoyed by MacTaggert's presumption. "Remember that."

MacTaggert didn't follow him when he left, stalking towards the Smoking Room on the second floor. The chess set there lay unfinished, but Erik felt himself calm down a fraction as he sat before it, watching the frozen play, remembering the whisky and the evening breeze, Charles' boyish laughter and soft fingers. Charles padded up to him, resting his muzzle comfortably over Erik's knees, and eventually, he sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose.

"You seem adept at attracting the most unexpected forms of trouble."

Charles shot him an incredulous look, _what, me?_ then he parted his jaws in a puppyish grin of good-humor, thumping his tail on the ground. "Stop that, you're not a dog... And _stop_ ," Erik said, with half-hearted exasperation, when Charles leaned up to lick his jaw, instead. "I'm trying to think. It's no laughing matter, Charles," Erik growled, when Charles made a _go on_ gesture with a paw. "We've had three intrusions. First by Arctus, then by the First Sons, and now the CIA."

Charles nodded slowly, as though saying _and so?_ , his eyes bright and innocently devoid of worry, and Erik exhaled, leaning back in his chair. "The first instance was unavoidable, the third I could handle if I wished to, but those hunters... had they come earlier, had Arctus not been here... I may not have been able to protect you."

Wolves couldn't roll their eyes, but Charles made a fair enough attempt that Erik scowled at him, then batted irritably at his mate as Charles lapped a long stripe over his cheek. "It's a serious problem, Charles. Arctus must leave, sooner or later, and the threat of hunters, of _humans_ looking to kill us or exploit us, will always be out there. I want you to be _safe_ ," he grit out, carefully getting hold of Charles' head, holding him still.

He had no real solutions to the possibility of future strife, future attacks. Summers had informed him, rather apologetically, that Wilson was an anomaly for them; their security was handled by the Pack itself, like most other Packs. As a Pack on its very first legs, Erik might have no choice but to accept other lone wolves. Safety for any Pack came in numbers. And once the Frosts left - _if_ they left, a small voice in Erik's mind noted - Erik and Charles would be left in a difficult position, with both the CIA and a hunter faction aware of their location.

Charles watched him soberly, as though trying to pick out his concerns, then he pushed forward to nuzzle carefully against Erik's neck, licking him when he shuddered, exhaling. That was the other problem with Charles. As strong willed as he could be, and despite the brutal experiences in his childhood, Charles seemed so blithely forgiving of the world and its dangers that Erik had to shoulder the entire problem of security on his own shoulders. But he would do it, Erik thought grimly, as he buried his nose into his mate's scruff and breathed deep.

7.0.

MacTaggert - _Moira_ \- managed to permanently endear herself to Charles on the second day of the CIA's abrupt occupation of the mansion, when she'd declared herself tired of Charles' terrible scratchy pen-in-mouth writing and had taken off into town, returning with a boxed game. It was called 'Scrabble', and Charles had stared, floored with pleasure, when Moira had opened it to reveal a small, velvet bag of plastic letter tiles, and when she had poured the tiles out onto the coffee table in the French Lounge, Charles had quickly, carefully spelled _THANK YOU_.

"That's it, I'm batshit crazy," Moira breathed, as Charles wagged his tail with an urgent happiness, ignoring the faint edge of tension that he could scent from Erik, seated cross-legged on the carpet beside him and ostensibly watching one of the agents stationed at the door to the Lounge.

 _NO_ , Charles wrote, and Moira snorted, carding her right hand slowly through her hair. "I'm hoping that I am. My father was an Agent. He sort of had mixed feelings when I got accepted into Langley. He said, 'Moira, I'm proud of you, but you could've done better for yourself if you'd married into Malley's family and had lots of wee bairns'." Moira glared at the tiles. "It's a boys' club, in Langley. I've scored in the top percentile in every test they've thrown at me, taken all the hardest assignments, just to prove that I deserve to be there. And then I stumble into a page out of fantasy when I was hoping to make one of the biggest cases of my career."

 _SORRY_. Charles carefully nudged a 'Y' tile into place, then spelled, _WE CAN STILL CATCH ESSEX_ with some judicious tile shuffling.

"I worked my ass off on this case. I thought that I'd gotten all the loose ends, that I was finally in sight of the goal post." Moira sat down at the table, leaning her chin on her palms. "I mean, sure, I can see why some people might want to round all of you up and burn you at the stake - hell, I know people who want to burn _biracial_ kids at the stake - but Essex? From all the profiling that we've done, it looks like he's just in it for the money."

Erik's arm tensed around Charles, in a silent warning. "Hunters often appear to be rational people," Erik said, without looking over. "It's how they blend in. General society would reject them as lunatics, otherwise. As you've said, we're meant to be a fantasy."

"Why did he get Linner involved?" Moira mused.

"Linner was invited to the mansion on occasion. Charles was rather fond of him, and they would talk about books and dead authors for hours in that library. He was consulting on the implementation of a better cataloguing system. I assume that the tour he had of the mansion allowed him instead to catalogue the layout of it and advise Essex in preparation of the attack."

"Makes sense." Moira had whipped out her notepad again. "Pay Linner's medical bills, make the man indebted to him... that's one of Essex's favorite moves."

 _TELL US ABOUT ESSEX_ , Charles suggested, curious, and Moira grimaced. "It's not a pretty tale. He's been at this con game for a long time, around the world, as far as we can tell. By all reports, he's genuinely unhinged. Fancies himself a genius geneticist, supposedly obsessed with creating a 'perfect evolution'. Some of the things we've seen from the laboratories he left behind... it's all classified," Moira added, before Charles could ask, "But in the CIA, we've got a nickname for him. 'Mister Sinister'."

 _Mister Sinister_. It was a rather childish nickname, the way a boy might name the bogeyman under his bed, but Charles couldn't help the shudder that went through him, rather irrationally. He told himself that he'd probably already seen worse, if inadvertently, with Shaw and his Genesis room, his basement cells, _Erik_ strapped on an operating table - but it didn't help the unsettled feeling that welled and coiled ugly and cold in his gut. Within him, as though sensing his concern, he felt a faint kick, and he calmed himself guiltily, with a low breath.

"Pithy," Erik said dismissively, though his eyes were narrowed and hard when he glanced at Charles, sensing his discomfort, and he didn't calm even when Charles leaned forward to nose him carefully under his chin.

"I know." Moira said, a little self-deprecatingly. "It's the same with all these Code Red files, they all get nicknames."

Charles pawed a crooked _COPING MECHANISM_ with the tiles, wagging his tail until Moira chuckled, the reserve in her eyes thawing a little. "Suddenly, I can see why you're so popular in town even though you only visit for supplies and never get involved in any of the social events." She eyed Erik briefly, and added, "I had a grocer talk my ear off about how she was _sure_ that it was that 'cold European' and his 'bad influence' and how you would make so much more of yourself if you took a wife."

Erik snorted, even as Charles wrote, _MRS KINGSLEY IS LOVELY_ , then shuffled the tiles and added _YOU SHOULD TRY HER PECAN PIES_.

"I'll take a note on that." Moira said wryly, then she shook her head slowly again, as though trying to clear a mental fog. "Here I am, holding small talk with a pregnant werewolf."

 _AND I WITH A CIA AGENT_ , Charles replied playfully.

"Your people could revolutionalize things," Moira added, more thoughtfully, "Search and rescues, drug busts, even routine police work-"

"It's only been a day," Erik cut in flatly, "And you're already thinking about how best to use us." At Charles' sharp glance, Erik continued, in a low growl, "What, Charles? You know that I'm right... why can't you _see that_?"

 _CAN I HAVE A MOMENT_ , Charles snagged the tiles into place firmly, then added, _PLEASE_ when Erik stiffened.

"We've spoken about this-"

 _NOW_ , Charles wrote, though he felt a little guilty for doing so when Erik exhaled sharply, jaw clenching, and rose to his feet, stalking out of the room.

Once alone with Moira, Charles spelled, _SORRY ABOUT THAT_ into the silence, and ducked his head. And he had thought that Erik had been improving... but perhaps the 'human' invasion was just far too much for the dire wolf to swallow, on top of the Frosts _and_ Essex, all at the same time. Personally, Charles was sure that there was nothing to worry about. It wasn't as though they had done anything wrong - at least, not outside of defending themselves against the First Sons' attack, and Moira seemed both personable and reasonable. Also, none of the other agents had panicked and tried to kill them so far, nor had he smelled violence on any of them, only uncertainty and a little fear. Charles was sure that things would work out.

Besides, they couldn't afford to offend Moira and the CIA. Not only because of the current investigation, but because this was as good a point as any to attempt some form of reconciliation between their species. Erik's paranoia and suspicion would just throw them all out on the wrong footing. He'd just have to persuade his mate of that in private - once Erik cooled down enough to see sense.

"Are you all right?" Moira asked cautiously, after a long, awkward moment, then when Charles tilted his head, curious, added, somewhat more gently, "I don't know what it's like with you... your kind," she amended, "But with us... No offense, I've met women with men like that. They tend to be mousy and quiet, especially after a while. Often it's a whirlwind romance that sweeps into a wedding, and the husband's possessive. It's sweet, or romantic or something, at first, then it becomes less and less funny, and before they know it, they have no more friends, and they're trapped. Some of them get beaten regularly. You recognise the sort after a while. They're dead inside, you can see it from their eyes."

Charles shook his head so violently that he nearly got dizzy, and wrote sharply, _HES NOT LIKE THAT_ , and shook his head again, adding, _ITS PART INSTINCT_.

"Sure." Moira looked unconvinced. "I'll tell you what my instincts are telling me. Lehnsherr's a violent man."

Charles hesitated, warring between honesty and his desire to defend his mate, and recalled Shaw, the bloodlust vibrating through Erik's frame when he'd dropped to wolf form in the Hellfire Club; _blood-mad_ , Emma had called him, and Charles hadn't thought to unequivocally defend him, that time. With a sigh, Charles pushed the word _PART_ into fragments, and tapped his paw against the remaining word, firmly.

"All right." Moira sighed, reluctantly. "I guess I can't assume anything - an old instructor of mine used to harp on about how it was a bad habit, anyway; he even had a stupid little word game to go with it. You're from a totally new species, by the looks of it, and probably a different society with different customs and such, so my preconceptions might not be relevant... and the significance of that is going to be far out of my jurisdiction, I suspect. In any regard, it's none of my business, and I'm glad of that. I'm just here to catch Essex."

Charles rather liked Moira's oddly single-minded focus. It would probably make her an extremely successful agent - if the gender discrimination that Moira had circumspectly described didn't exist. _YOU WILL_ , he wrote, encouragingly, wagging his tail.

"And after that, I suspect I'll get reassigned onto another case." Moira murmured, then the agent rubbed her palm over her face. "Though, judging from everyone's reaction, you're the only one in favor of integration with the rest of society?"

 _LONG STORY_ , Charles wrote, after some hesitation, then added, _BABY STEPS_ , when Moira frowned at the jagged line of plastic letters.

"This might all end badly," Moira reached tentatively over the table, to rub a palm over Charles' forehead, petting him. "But I suppose that I'm glad that we met."

 _REALLY_ , Charles teased, his tongue lolling out in a silent laugh, and Moira rolled her eyes. "Well _yes_ , I would rather have had my original hypothesis proven correct and hopefully acquired Essex or a solid lead to him by now, but we can't always help the cards that we're dealt, and it's not as though this lead has petered out yet."

 _IF YOU WERE RIGHT I WOULD BE DEAD_ , Charles pointed out, helpfully.

"Hold that thought, Xavier," Moira said dryly, though the edges of her eyes crinkled up briefly in amusement. "I haven't seen you change back yet. Though I was wondering - if you change back immediately after you, uh, have puppies... then how do you feed them? If you're male in your human form? Or are you not actually _human_ in your 'human' form?"

Charles hadn't thought about that, paw frozen over the Scrabble tiles.

"You didn't think about that." Moira concluded mildly.

 _THANK YOU FOR THAT_ Charles spelled, a little acerbically, _NOW BRAIN HURTS_ he added, when Moira arched an eyebrow.

"I've never thought about having children," Moira said idly, her lips curling faintly. "The whole concept of lactating seems so terribly bovine."

Charles fought the urge to bang his head against the coffee table. _STOP PLEASE_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The CIA's file on Essex was extensive, and contained a wealth of photographs, taken from abandoned laboratories. Nathan froze when he shuffled to one of a bloodstained gurney, with a set of scalpels laid out in a neat row beside it on a steel bench, and felt an old chill creep up his spine, followed quickly by an old hatred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good god. I should be working this weekend, not writing. D:

VIII.

Erik's unease at the number of armed and unaffiliated humans now in the house didn't fade, even when the CIA seemed content to simply sniff around the grounds and the mansion and ask annoying questions. At least Charles had seemed apologetic about the abrupt way with which he had treated Erik, though he'd stood firm on the position of MacTaggert and the others as his 'guests'. It was never satisfying arguing with someone who couldn't talk back, however, and Erik had conceded the matter until the future with bad grace.

As the days edged closer to the full moon, Charles seemed to lose energy altogether, often spending the days lying listlessly on the cot in the converted drawing room, the Scrabble set close at hand. Emma arranged a rotating roster to read to Charles, from books in his library to random new books purchased in town, or magazines, or anything that Charles seemed to show any interest in.

Somewhat to Erik's surprise, MacTaggert put herself on the roster, and she spent her slots reading to Charles from magazines, TIME, Newsweek and the Economist. After a week or so, a couple of the Agents did, as well, from the old group which had first 'discovered' them; the newer agents sent from Langley to relieve a few of MacTaggert's team remained reserved.

"This is procedure in Ilulissat," Emma had told Erik, when he had questioned her outside of the drawing room, uncertain about how he felt about the fixed schedule of others around Charles at his most vulnerable. "Ask Raven."

"What do you mean, procedure?" Raven had been reading to Charles at that point in time, from a luridly mindless, feminine magazine, something about fashion trends, and from what he could see about Charles from this angle, for some reason Charles was being entertained rather than disgusted; he was peering at the magazine, tongue lolling out at something that Raven pointed at.

"He needs stimulation." Emma had shrugged. "McCoy explained the particular nature of Arctus wolves to you, I presume?" At Erik's cautious nod, Emma had added, "The weeks before the birth are the worst of it for us. The mesh shifts, as the wolf side of us tries to take over, and our human minds resist it. The mental struggle weakens us, makes us tired and drained. It's a matter of keeping the balance using forced intellectual stimulation."

Erik hadn't seen the problem. "Let the wolf take over. Then Charles will know what to do. The other side of him wouldn't know."

"It's not that simple," Emma had murmured, her eyes distant and hard. "But that's just what a Pack inexperienced with an Arctus female would have said. 'Allow the wolf side to take over.' It's one reason why Grandsire is careful with his selections; he ensures that any new Pack is well aware of our special requirements." This was said coldly, laced with a touch of anger that surprised Erik - Emma was usually dispassionate to a fault. At his blink, she had continued, "If Charles gives in, he may never shift back again, or worse; he'll lose the human part of himself altogether. Often," Emma added grimly, "That's the end of us as we are."

"Your sister," Erik had said, with slow realization. "Was that-"

"Perhaps. I'll never know now." Emma had refused to elaborate, and Erik had returned to the room to sit in his corner, hiding his new worries behind the morning's papers.

Nathan called back now and then from Langley to check on them, but Erik could sense that whatever the CIA had on Essex, it was substantial enough that the young werewolf was reluctant to return, at least for now. Erik had decided not to push matters. If it turned out that the Frosts were here for more than altruism or family obligations, it wasn't as though one immature werewolf and a human would make a difference; worse, Nathan might get himself killed in the process. Despite Nathan's implied offer to help, Erik didn't want to be the cause of his death - Nathan wasn't of his Pack, and he had a personal vendetta to fulfil. Erik, of all people, understood that sentiment intimately.

Then the full moon came and went, with no backstabs from the CIA, and on the next morning, Charles was in such an uncommonly good mood - _smug_ , Erik had thought, though without any real irritation - that Erik had grudgingly held his first civil conversation with MacTaggert since her arrival.

"Usually, you prefer to sit and glower at me from your corner, Lehnsherr," MacTaggert observed, after a couple of days of the occasional attempt at polite small talk, immaculate in a blouse and pencil skirt as she sat beside Charles on the cot, a copy of National Geographic open on her lap to some article about a long-dead Egyptian Pharaoh and his treasures. "Am I finally doing something right?"

Erik shrugged. "You're Charles' guest. Possibly a long-term one."

"I thought that you didn't like the idea of that." MacTaggert had the instincts of a natural policewoman, Erik thought sourly, always zeroing in on topics that exasperated him most.

"I don't. But Charles seems to like you," Erik eyed Charles, who was watching him from the cot. The gray wolf's tail thumped once, twice, wearily. "I'm trying to understand why."

"At least you're honest." MacTaggert smirked. "And I can assure you that the sentiment's neutral. I'm trying to understand why Charles likes _you_. You're bad tempered, irascible and intolerant, and the best reason I could come up with is that you're easy on the eyes and you probably have a large prick."

Charles made a squawking noise, horrified at the blithe, unladylike way MacTaggert had just declared that, even as Erik choked, and MacTaggert's smirk widened, a twinkle of devilry in her eyes. "It's not unusual. I know girls who'd go out with anyone with a... all right," she laughed, as Charles moaned to himself, shutting his eyes. "There's nothing wrong with admitting that, Charles. Don't tell me that I broke your brain again."

"Pray never mention this topic to me again," Erik said stiffly. In addition to having the instincts of a cop, MacTaggert clearly also had the social graces of one, as well.

"My God, the both of you. One's pregnant, one's a bloody man of mystery, and you're both prudes. You deserve each other." MacTaggert made a show of turning the page of her magazine. "All right. You're both going to listen to a write up on Tutankhamen's buried treasure whether you like it or not."

MacTaggert had worked through two articles and was reading out something about an Everest ascent when Erik sniffed at the air, frowning. Charles' scent was changing subtly, turning musky, and as he put down his paper, he realized that Charles was tensing, his eyes wide and a little puzzled. Abruptly, he winced, cocking his head, then his next glance at Erik was full of urgency, even as Erik shot to his feet, startling MacTaggert into slipping her hand under her suit for the piece that she had strapped to her at all times.

"Lehnsherr?"

"McCoy. Get McCoy!"

MacTaggert looked down at Charles, frozen for a moment, then she quickly dropped the magazine and left the room hurriedly, barking orders at a startled-looking Janus in the corridor. Charles rested his head on Erik's shoulder with a low moan of pain as Erik knelt down by the bed and gathered him tightly against him, and he breathed out shakily at the convulsive shudder that ran through Charles' frame.

 _Survive this_ , Erik thought fiercely, as Charles' breathing began to grow more labored, McCoy and the rest of the medical team nearly tumbling into the room in their haste. _Please_.

8.0.

Charles woke up with a sense of spatial disorientation, dizzy for a moment as he sat up in an awkward shift of muscles that felt disused and nearly alien. _Human again_ , he thought, with raw relief so great that his throat clenched, studying his pink hands, then he looked down at a faint stir against his thigh and had to grin. Awake, the larger black pup was trying to crawl into his lap, using her white-furred brother as a stepping stone.

Born blind and deaf, Charles thought, as he gathered them carefully into his lap, recalling Hank's awkward explanation at his original sense of panic. Two weeks for the eyes to open. They seemed so _small_.

Glancing up, his eyes adjusting to the dim moonlight from the window, Charles noted Erik's outline, curled at a strange angle balanced between the bed and the chair beside it that he had somehow fallen asleep upon instead of on the bed, looking as exhausted as he probably felt; he hadn't even eaten dinner. It had been a long, difficult labor, mostly due to how large the black pup was, and Charles grimaced as he recalled Erik's snarling outburst when Hank had suggested a caesarean. With a werewolf's regeneration rate, caesareans were tricky procedures unless silver implements were used, and that could easily mean the death of a newborn _and_ its mother.

The female pup squeaked and sucked on Charles' forefinger when he tried to tickle her under the chin, and, smiling foolishly to himself, Charles felt a wash of affection so intense that his eyes stung, a blanket of responsibility settling over his shoulders. He was a father now, he and Erik, to these two, tiny balls of squirming fur, and already the world seemed sharper, brighter.

"They'll start teething in a few weeks," Erik said, in a low murmur, watching him, still curled in his awkward position, "And then they'll start biting everything."

"Thanks for the warning." Charles said dryly, entertaining images of his own children chewing on the antique Queen Anne furniture. He'll have to work out something, for the sake of dignity, if nothing else. "Not being able to name them yet seems so... impersonal."

"Wolves don't need names." Erik repeated Emma's comment, stretching and shifting onto the bed beside him, curling an arm around his waist and rubbing a thumb briefly under the black pup's paw, then gently over the curve of the white pup's skull. "Do you need anything?"

"No," Charles said, though he'd have loved to have a warm drink, yawning, then he gripped Erik's wrist as Erik made as if to move. "Erik?"

"You usually want something warm if you're up at this sort of hour," Erik observed, and arched an eyebrow as Charles smiled fondly at him. "What?"

"No, nothing." Charles settled himself against Erik's chest, head tucked under his chin, content and at peace as long arms curled around his waist. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For putting up with me." Charles recalled the four months with a sense of faint embarrassment. He'd never be able to look at the woods with quite the same sang-froid again, particularly the parts of it where the grass was now noticeably darker. Erik hummed, deep in his throat, as if in dismissal, and Charles added, primly, "Though we are still never going to have sex again in our other form. This has not been a particularly pleasant experience."

Erik snorted, though the arms around him tightened for a moment. "You weren't always wrong," he conceded, after a long, companionable pause. "But you're not always right, either."

"I'm not always right about what?" Charles smiled, with mock innocence, mouthing up to brush his lips against the edge of Erik's mouth, then grinning when Erik leaned down to slant their mouths together in a quick, bruising kiss. He'd missed this form of intimacy, the tingle on his mouth from a kiss, the taste of Erik as a tongue flicked between his lips.

"About the humans." Erik refused to be distracted. "They only want to use us. If your new friend ever found out about what our blood could do for them-"

"They're not all like that, Erik."

"You've heard what she said."

"I did, and I agree with her. We could _help_. Rescue missions, finding missing persons, police work - all of those save lives, Erik. Finding all the children who go missing, all the clues that might be overlooked in police work by normal humans. There's nothing wrong about public service, about doing your part in the community. And as to our blood..." Charles hesitated, for a moment, then he rubbed fingers briefly through his hair. "I need to talk to Wilson about that. About what happened. Can't make assumptions without data."

"You saw what happened to Nathan."

"You can't judge an entire species on the actions of a few," Charles disagreed, careful to keep still, as the black pup slowly snuggled back into sleep. "And werewolves aren't without our black sheep."

Erik curled fingers briefly and tightly around his hip at the reminder of Shaw, then he exhaled. "I'm too tired to argue with you. I'll get you that drink."

"All right." Charles hesitated for a moment, then added self-consciously, as his stomach rumbled, reminding him that he himself had slept through dinner, "Um, and if you could, a sandwich or something, as well, or biscuits if it's not too much trouble-" The words stuttered shut as Erik kissed him again, rumbling contentedly as Charles automatically opened his mouth to invite in a questing tongue, pressing his palms onto Erik's cheeks, breathing deep. God. He'd _missed_ this.

"You're never too much trouble," Erik said roughly, with another brushing kiss over his lips, carefully petting the sleeping pups on his lap, then he slipped off the bed, loping towards the door. Charles settled back against the headboard, smiling again foolishly to himself as he switched on the bed lamp and reached for the notebook on the side table.

He was growing absorbed in Hank's latest thesis when there was the sudden crack of a gun being discharged, small arms, by the sound of it, muffled but loud. Startled, Charles nearly dropped the notebook, and on his lap, the white pup squeaked, surprised, as he flinched. Charles hushed it, petting until it fell back asleep, frowning as he peered quickly out of the window. They didn't seem to be under attack-

Then he heard it - Erik's unmistakable, deep throated howl, fury and warning all at once, and Charles froze, wide-eyed, shock thudding through him and making his heart hammer. Hunters? Yet he didn't hear any alarm being raised, no doors being swung open or Raven's voice raised in command. The white pup shifted on his lap, uncomfortably, and quickly, Charles came to a decision. Easing himself carefully out from under the sheets, he stumbled a little before he remembered how to walk in human form.

The corridor was empty, but Charles couldn't bear the thought of leaving his pups to themselves, and so he closed the door, and as an afterthought, wedged the chair that Erik had been sitting on under the knob. Shifting forms and wriggling out of his bathrobe, Charles leaped onto the bed, nuzzling the two sleeping pups for a moment before lifting his nose to let out a questioning howl of his own, thankful that they were born deaf; he wouldn't be disturbing them.

No answer came, nor any hint of movements in the other rooms. Charles howled again, this time anxiously, and cut himself off as he heard, at the edge of his senses, the sound of a heavy tread, coming down the corridor in measured footsteps. There was a loud, snuffling sound, as though from some sort of large animal, then a grunt, and whatever it was kept on walking, coming closer. Bipedal, Charles thought, from the rhythm, even as he planted himself firmly on the bed over the pups, waiting, forcing himself to keep down the growl that kept trying to burrow out from within him. He had to be quiet. Just in case. He'd worry about Erik later, but for now, the two helpless little pups took overwhelming precedence.

The footsteps came to a slow stop outside the door.

Charles crouched, bristling, barely daring to breathe and silently praying that the pups would stay asleep. There was that snuffling sound again, louder this time, from higher up, as though above the doorframe, then someone tried the lock, rattling the door heavily.

Then there was a heavy, dull thud, the door jarring on its hinges, then another, and with a splintering squeal, the door gave violently, skidding the chair across the carpet, and as the wolf side of Charles snarled, tensing to spring, the human side of him was frozen in absolute astonishment as something neither wolf nor human squeezed through the door.

The creature was tall, his head nearly brushing the ceiling, and his furless, hairless skin was a milky, unhealthy white, accentuating the black lips on his jaws, his face a curious, repulsive blend of human features, with a human forehead and eyes over a long, wolf like snout that was flecked red with blood, his broad chest and thick, long fingers splashed crimson. Hanging from his broad shoulders were tattered strips from the remains of a suit and shirt, and part of the alien scent seemed... familiar. Thinking back wildly, Charles catalogued it as Agent Nestor - one of the three new Agents who had arrived two days ago in rotation.

One of the _Agents_.

"I would prefer," Nestor said, in a distorted, wet growl, lisping behind his distended fangs, "Not to resort to violence."

Charles shoved his astonishment and his instinctive scientific curiosity aside, and let the wolf take rein, springing off the bed and darting close, looking to hamstring the monster and bear him down to a level where his teeth could do some real damage, but Nestor whirled with a speed and grace that his bulky form should not have possessed and kicked him heavily in the ribs, sending Charles spinning with a yelp as he crashed against the splintered doorframe. Tutting, Nestor sook his heavy head in mock regret, as Charles merely picked himself up again, with a snarl, moving to put himself between Nestor and the pups.

"I still need you for now, Xavier. But it doesn't need to be in one piece." Nestor sidestepped, and plucked him out of the air by his scruff as Charles sprang at him again, holding out the kicking, snarling wolf as one of the other Agents stepped through into the door, firing darts into his hide even as Charles struggled to shift forms and slip out of Nestor's grip.

Human again, he slumped on the ground, panting as he tried to fight off the sudden lassitude that he felt, pulling the darts from his flank, gritting his teeth. "Nestor-"

"Nestor was a necessary guise. You would perhaps know my true name," Nestor gestured towards the bed, watching as Charles moaned and tried to crawl towards it when the other two Agents scooped the squeaking pups into a basket. "Since I hear that you've all been treating me as the bogeyman for quite a while. It's been rather flattering."

"Essex," Charles whispered, as his vision began to darken, his stomach bottoming out for a moment as he felt himself get picked up as though he weighed nothing.

"Get the other two Arctus werewolves before the drug wears off," Charles heard Essex command, even as he fought vainly to stay conscious. "Our extraction is on its way."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was only after he had read Gregor Mendel's _Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden_ that Nathaniel Essex experienced a revelation so intense that it was akin to a religious visitation. Now he understood his purpose. The next stage of evolution was dependent on the hand of man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems that I have to get all these pictures out of my head before I can start on any real IRL work t_t

IX.

"... get up, get _up_ , damn you!"

Someone was shaking his shoulder roughly and shouting into his ear; Erik shook his head groggily, blinking, then he yelped as cold water splashed over his eyes. MacTaggert swam into focus; her face was grey from pain, her left arm was held at an unnatural angle, and as he blinked at her, she dropped the cup that she was holding and shook him again. "Come on! That thing is still upstairs!"

 _Charles_. Erik forced himself onto his paws, stumbling, gasping, his head ringing from pain, his ribs slowly knitting from the force of Essex's throw, and from the doorway, a pair of Agents watched them both warily, revolvers at the ready. The kitchen table was a splintered wreck, as were the chairs, and there was a noticeable dent in the refrigerator; the tiles on the ground he had been lying on were cracked in a concentric circle from impact, and a discarded dart lay where it had been thrown, a few feet away.

He had found MacTaggert in the kitchen, writing reports by a cup of coffee. They had exchanged wary pleasantries, and even as he had prepared to warm up a saucepan of milk to make a cup of cocoa for Charles, Essex and his men had come in, shooting darts from tranquilizer guns. MacTaggert's reflexes were good; she'd ducked away instantly once she had seen the guns, shoving the table before her for cover, and had come back up firing; though she'd only managed to squeeze a shot off before Essex had... _transformed_ into some sort of monster and had come at her with a powerful lunge, dashing her aside with a powerful backhand into the fridge, then _gloating_ over her prone form.

Erik had caught one of the darts in his right arm, but he had managed to pull it out and change forms to sound the alarm with a howl, lunging over MacTaggert's crumpled body to charge at the intruders. He'd managed to rip open Essex's thigh before he'd been shot again, and again, and then tossed aside, his last vision that of Essex turning to head away, in the direction of the living quarters, towards _Charles_.

Dizzy, afraid and sick with anger, Erik managed to regain his balance by the time they made it out of the kitchen, heading for the stairway up towards the living quarters on silent paws, the Agents behind him. He couldn't hear anything; not a sound from any of the other werewolves, no snarls, growls or any evidence of battle, though any werewolf within hearing range should have awoken after he had howled. Disconcerted, Erik briefly entertained the uncomfortable possibility that the Frosts were working with Essex before his wolf mind instantly discarded the idea.

It wasn't relevant right now, the wolf mind decided, not politics or motives, only the pure fact that there had been an invasion of his territory, and the invader deserved to die. He needed to find his mate, and he had to concentrate on the biggest apparent threat - the strange wolf-man that Essex had turned into, with its unnatural strength and speed. He'd been caught unawares in the kitchen, which was a confined space that was not conducive to battling something larger than he was. He'll have to pick his terrain carefully-

From the mixed scents, Essex had headed straight for the living quarters; he'd known exactly where to go, even in the dark. Behind him, Erik could hear MacTaggert murmuring to the other agents, something about impersonation and security breaches, but his wolf mind ignored them, sniffing, and then picking up, finally, the sound of heavy footsteps, approaching the stairway from the landing above them. He reached the foot of the stairs just in time to see Essex descending it, Charles in human form, carried over one unnaturally broad shoulder, Emma on the other, a basket held by one of his men, behind him, and Raven carried in the arms of another.

All three werewolves were still and unmoving.

_Charles!_

Erik snarled, far too furious for stealth, and leaped for Essex's throat, even as the half wolf, half man creature dropped the bodies he was carrying and surged to meet him, snarling. Erik landed against Essex heavily, rocking him back, tearing a chunk from his shoulders, his back scraping against the ceiling as Essex roared and tried to throw him off, staggering down the stairway onto the ground floor, spinning wildly and trying to scrape him off against the walls and the ceiling.

Guns discharged in twin, loud retorts, then again, and again, and Essex staggered as the Agents behind MacTaggert fired grimly and repeatedly into his back. The bullets didn't faze him - _silver vulnerability_ , the wolf mind thought, a melded monster between man and wolf - and Essex ignored the two Agents as they frantically reloaded, concentrating on trying to dislodge the dire wolf with its jaws locked close to the juncture of his neck, claws scraping and clawing down his back.

"I spared you," Essex was snarling, his words distorted by his jaws, his bestial features contorted in pain and fury, "I don't want to have to kill you!"

"MacTaggert, get back here!" one of the Agents called, retreating as Essex slammed his back against the nearest wall; Erik grimaced at the sharp crack that he heard and the flare of pain that arced down his ribs. He'd have to wait for a good opportunity to shift his grip closer to Essex's neck, and suffocate him-

"MacTaggert!"

In the corner of his eye, Erik could see MacTaggert making a grim charge towards the man with the basket, twisting his gun arm aside as he drew it awkwardly from under his suit, ramming his wrist against the bannister to make him drop the gun, then grabbing the basket from him and shouldering him off balance before fleeing up the stairs.

The thug holding Raven dropped her, pulling out his gun and aiming it after MacTaggert, but he abruptly fell backwards, jerking and gargling, his neck a red ruin, even as Essex used the momentary distraction to get a grip on Erik's scruff, tear him off and throw him back, heedless of the flesh that Erik ripped off his shoulder in the process, sending the dire wolf crashing into the bannister at the foot of the stairway.

Growling, Essex stepped forward menacingly, hands locked into wide claws at his hairless white flanks, only to abruptly get knocked off his feet; Nathan's one-eyed wolf form had landed on his back, white-furred and snarling as it closed its jaws over the back of Essex's neck, holding on grimly as Essex howled and rolled, clawing at it, trying to crush Nathan under his greater bulk. It wasn't a good enough grip to kill him, and Nathan seemed to know it, growling and twisting as he tried to shift positions without getting dislodged, claws scrabbling at pale skin until his white fur was bloodied.

Behind the struggle, Wilson appeared from the corridor leading towards the foyer, whistling loudly to himself as he aimed and fired in one fluid shot, killing the remaining human on the stairway with a precise bullet to his head, then he aimed his pistols down, emptying the chambers into Essex's broad chest and belly, a manic grin on his face, the staccato sound of gunfire painfully loud in the room. "My God, you're an ugly bastard," Wilson said viciously, as he reloaded in a fluid twist of his pistols, aiming them again, this time towards the joints on Essex's knees. "Should've brought some silver-"

Essex screamed, heaving, and twisting, clawing wildly over his shoulders, and Nathan lost his grip, yelping as he was tossed backwards by a rough swipe, smashing down against a painting and shattering its frame. Snarling, Erik ignored the complaints of his body and picked himself up, pouncing again, ripping at Essex's muzzle, trying to get at his neck, but with a sudden effort, Essex roared again and shook him off, and began to lope for the kitchen with an unnatural speed, his shoulders and back drenched with his own blood. Nathan shook himself off and sped after him, followed by Wilson, but Erik hesitated, padding over to nose at Charles, whining, then letting out a loud huff of relief.

Charles' breathing was stable, and he seemed uninjured. _Thank God_.

"All clear?" MacTaggert called, from the top of the stairs, peering down warily, and as he nodded slowly at her, she picked her way back down to him, setting down the basket gently beside Charles, and smiling crookedly as Erik solemnly licked her cheek in thanks. "Don't mention it," she murmured, sitting down against the wall, gesturing at the other Agents, who nodded and padded away. "God _damnit_. He was under my nose all this _fucking_ while. I don't _believe_ it. But what the _hell_ was that? Can you guys turn into that kind of halfway creature?"

Erik shook his head and shrugged the best he could in his current form, even as one of the Agents returned with Erik's discarded clothes and a robe. Erik had just finished dressing, his ripped shirt hanging loosely open, wrapping Charles in the robe, when the one-eyed wolf shot past, looking thoroughly unhappy. Moments later, Wilson reappeared, shaking his head. "Lost him. He had a getaway van, through the woods. No license plate. Couldn't get a clear shot at the tyres."

"Fuck." MacTaggert said, with feeling, and closed her eyes wearily. "If that doesn't fucking top everything. And what the hell am I going to put in my report, I don't know. The Director's going to kick my ass."

"You have good timing, Wilson," Erik said, resting Charles' head in his lap, restlessly petting the sleeping pups with his free hand to reassure himself that they were fine, all too aware that luck had been fully on their side this night. If MacTaggert had not woken him - if Wilson and Nathan had not returned when they had - Essex would have taken Charles and his pups away. Erik might never have seen them again.

Swallowing the instinctive panic, Erik stroked his hand briefly through Charles' hair, looking away, fighting to slow his breathing. "Very good timing."

"We were on our way back anyway. I heard that puppies had happened and wanted to have a look." Wilson said dryly, sitting down in front of the basket, his eyes softening. "D'aww. I love puppies. Look at that. Their eyes are closed."

"That's it, his brain's gone." Nathan was still pulling on his coat as he rounded the corner, then he rubbed his palm over his single eye. "I shouldn't have stayed away for so long, Lehnsherr, I'm sorry. I should have known that this would have happened. Essex was always interested in studying immature werewolves; he wouldn't have passed up a chance like this, to get his hands on a pair of newborns."

"If you had been here, you'd have been drugged at dinner with the rest of them." Erik pointed out, far too relieved to play any blame games. "What _was_ that? What can he do?"

"I haven't seen him shapeshift before, if that's what you mean. I thought that he was fully human." Nathan carefully picked Emma up, moving her into the closest side room with a divan and arranging her gently upon it, then returning outside for Raven and draping her carefully on a chair and checking on her eyes. "Looks like everyone's been drugged, I recognise the look. He's had a long time to perfect the specific anaesthetic - I've been on the receiving end of it before. They'll just wake up with a mild headache, with no other side effects."

"I think I know what happened. Essex was always talking about it. Splicing gray matter - that's the thing he calls the form you guys have during the change - into himself. I guess he found a way to make it stick." Wilson said, chin on his palms. "Ohh. Look at that small little tail. I can't believe he tried to kidnap these little guys. That deserves a _serious_ asskicking."

"He definitely must have waited for the birth." MacTaggert muttered, getting to her feet, righting herself against the wall as she stumbled. "I'm going to get a hospital to look at my arm, then I'll be right back. Make sure the perimeter's secured. I don't think he'd be back tonight, but call me if he comes."

"She scares me," Wilson declared, once MacTaggert and the other Agents were out of earshot.

"Let's get the both of you back upstairs." Nathan held out a hand towards him. "I think Essex has probably had enough for tonight, but Wade and I will keep watch and try to wake the others."

9.0.

Charles woke up to a sensation of suffocation and heat. He was pressed against the dire wolf's flank, curled against the squeaking pups, both of which were nosing blindly and hopefully at his arm, and for a moment, disoriented, he pinched himself, blinking, before allowing the needs of the pups to take over. The process of feeding was much less traumatic whenever he didn't concentrate on it; he went through the periodic table in his mind, then Hank's thesis, eyes squeezed shut.

When the pups were full and asleep again, Charles nosed them wearily and dozed off, waking again only when the sun had crept over his eyes and he could smell tea and scones from the side table. Erik was reading the papers, cross-legged on the bed with the squirming pups in his lap, and as Charles woke with a yawn, he set them both carefully back against him, wordlessly.

When (everyone's) breakfast was duly attended to and Charles was presentable again, he sat back down on the bed, where the pups were back in Erik's lap, squeaking and play-biting at each other. "We need some sort of crib. I'll get someone to dust off the one in the attic. It's an antique, and it'll be large enough for the both of them. I don't think they'll be able to climb out of it."

Erik nodded slowly, eyeing him over the edge of the paper. "All right."

"What happened last night?" Charles asked, after an awkward pause, as Erik seemed content to just sit and read his paper, as though the night before hadn't happened at all. "Are you all right?"

"Nothing permanent. Yourself?"

"I'm fine." Charles said, with a sigh, curling up against Erik, nuzzling up against his thigh, desperately thankful. If he'd woken up in a cell in some laboratory... he didn't know what he would have done. "Did you get him?"

"No. He escaped." Erik's jaw tensed for a moment, though he continued reading the paper. "Nathan is trying to trace him."

"Did anyone get hurt?"

"MacTaggert broke her arm. She came back this morning, with a new cast, a foul mood, and a bottle of painkillers. She'll like to see you when you're ready."

Charles blinked. Erik's tone had been neutral, with none of the hostility that Charles had been expecting. Wryly, Charles said, "I'm surprised. I thought you'd have been all for pointing out that my view about 'humans' is utterly unsubstantiated after all, and possibly have kicked all the humans out of the mansion."

"MacTaggert may have saved your life, yours and the pups. Essex had knocked me out in the kitchen... she woke me up; she went for the pups even with a broken arm, unarmed, against a gunman." Erik shrugged, though his tone remained neutral. "Perhaps they are not all... intolerable. Also," Erik added, with a faint smile, "If we kicked all the humans out of the mansion, we'd have no staff left to make your breakfast or your tea, or harangue you for leaving your books all over the place."

Humor was a start. A good start. "What _was_ he? Essex, I mean."

"I'm not sure." Erik's muttered, his amusement fading at the reminder. "But the next time he comes, I'll kill him. He planned this. Dinner was drugged; whatever it was didn't affect humans, but it knocked out the rest of us who had eaten it. Nathan thinks that he was waiting for the birth - that he wanted to study newborns. If Wilson's obsession with puppies hadn't called Nathan and himself back here... he might have..."

Charles squeezed Erik's thigh reassuringly, as Erik's words choked off, the papers crinkling in his tightening grasp. "He might have, but he didn't. We'll be prepared, next time."

"We can't afford a next time. We'll have to find him, take him out. The CIA's just cracked his paper trail - that's the reason why Nathan and Wilson stayed in Langley for so long. They have some leads on where his facility might be."

"So we'll be assisting the CIA."

"Or using them," Erik countered, snorting at Charles' quick grin. "Don't push me on this, Charles. MacTaggert and her other Agents may have helped us, but that doesn't erase the fact that Essex and his men tried to take you away."

 _Baby steps_ , Charles thought, though he smiled to himself and breathed deep. "You stopped them."

"I find your utter insouciance in the face of your own kidnapping rather remarkable," Erik grumbled. "Did you hit your head in the process?"

"Well, there's no use in panicking over the past," Charles said mildly, though he grinned and reached over to tickle under the black pup's chin, for reassurance. "We'll just have to work on making sure that it doesn't happen again." When Erik snorted, Charles added, more softly, "For a moment, I thought perhaps... I thought that they'd killed you. All of you, when no one answered me. I made a... my wolf form howled, but no answer came. I thought perhaps..." He'd been too occupied with the pups' safety at that point, and now, in hindsight, he was grateful for that. Even the thought of something happening to Erik made a cold, ugly knot twist within his gut. "Thank God."

"God had little to do with it," Erik muttered gruffly, though he reached down to squeeze at Charles' shoulder. "Nathan and Wilson will stay on until Essex is taken care of, but it's not a permanent solution. We'll have to take in other werewolves."

Charles nodded sleepily. "There'll be others in the badlands. And we could ask Hank, he doesn't seem too happy, being with the Arctus Pack."

Erik grunted at the mention of Hank, and Charles recalled with some faint amusement that Erik had on occasion shown an unaccountable degree of jealousy where Hank was concerned. "Don't tell me that you still believe that I'm looking to run off with him into the sunset, _darling_."

His mate grumbled in German for a long moment, then he sighed out aloud. "I suppose not. And he will be useful."

"And if we work with the CIA, I'm sure that some sort of security detail could be worked out, at least until we're more secure-"

"No. We can't rely on them. We can't be sure that there'd not be any infiltration, like this time. It'll be a grave security risk that we can't afford to take in the long term. Don't disagree with me," Erik said flatly, when Charles shifted against him, sounding exasperated. "Must we _always_ argue? On everything of even a remote degree of importance? Can't you just accept that I'm right in this matter?"

"Erik," Charles said, with arch solemnity, a bubble of laughter welling in his throat, "I think that even when we're old men, hunched over a chess set with our walking sticks or wheelchairs, we'll still be arguing, every step of the way, on anything from what constitutes appropriate matching curtain colors to civil rights philosophies. We'll never agree on anything, and it'd be perfect."

"Or I'll snap at some point and throttle you," Erik retorted, though he smiled wryly as he said this, shaking his head, rubbing a palm slowly and tenderly down Charles' curled flank, as the morning curled warm and languid around them both.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was almost, Nathan thinks, frustrated, like the spiel of one of those lurid comic books available from the news stands, the villain escaping at the eleventh hour. But he could be patient, and at least Essex had not acquired what he had come for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, finally. This was (as usual) way longer than I thought it would be.

postscript 1.

"Pure Arctus. Remarkable. I would have thought that it would take at least another generation."

Two days after the pups had opened their eyes for the first time, they had received a polite telegraph from Ilulissat, requesting for formal permission to visit. Erik had been reserved about it all, particularly when Emma's eyebrows had risen a fraction when the telegraph had been passed to her, but in the end, Charles' damnable curiosity had taken precedence.

Cain Frost was not what Erik had expected; he had envisaged a man larger than life, fierce and hearty, from the respectful way Raven referred to him on occasion, or Hank's occasional mumbled, fearful note; not a frail-looking old man, tall but stooped, his hair wispy and bone white, parchment-pale hands curled over the bronze knob of a heavy walking stick, dressed in a stark, plain white jacket and dress pants. At his side was a female timber wolf, its muzzle gray from age, with piercingly blue eyes, who had been introduced as Patrick Frost - Cain's mate.

Erik's hands itched as Cain carefully handled the white pup, which squeaked uncertainly and rolled onto its back over wrinkled hands. Charles - innocent, impressionable Charles - was standing on the other side of the crib, grinning with pride and open curiosity.

"Small, though." Cain placed the pup gently back into the crib, and fixed Charles with a steely, blue-eyed stare. "Dear Emma must be most disappointed."

There was a touch of dark humor to Cain's tone that made Erik narrow his eyes and Charles straighten up. "My aunt's interests are not my own, Cain," Charles said firmly, meeting Cain's stare unflinchingly. "My children could be any color or size under the sun and I would love them still. I find that the magnitude with which certain others place on fur and eye color most regrettable."

"Love them for what they are, not for what color they are?" Cain's lip twisted faintly. "I have heard that before. It seems that Emma has not been entirely truthful to me. You are in almost every way your mother's son. Blind to fact and to genetic necessity, impulsive and obstinate."

Beside him, the timber wolf snorted, padding over to sit with the careful grace of the very elderly beside Erik when he started to his feet. Charles looked over briefly at the wolf, then back to Cain with a smile. "I find it difficult to believe that a full wolf form somehow gives my mate less humanity than either of us, sir."

"And I," Cain said dryly, "Find it rather tiresome to revisit old arguments. You'll not convince me, and I suspect that I will be unable to convince you, and besides, I am old and set in my ways. I came all this way for one purpose only, Charles, to invite you and your mate to join Arctus."

"I must decline," Charles inclined his head, tracing the ribbed edge of the crib. "But thank you for coming all this way, all the same. I do not think that Emma's method is the best method - at least, not yet. I intend for the moment to attempt social integration my own way. And as to my children, I intend to give them the freedom to choose their own paths. After all, the future is a matter that should be held in trust for the young, not vice versa."

"Emma's method?" Cain repeated, arching an eyebrow.

"She noted that the best way to change werewolf society was to replace leadership at its very apex. That was part of the reason behind her interest in, ah, my previous situation."

"And that was what she told you?" Cain chuckled softly, his amusement edged with bitterness. "Dear Emma, ever subtle. I'm afraid that as much as she was twin to your mother, they were never alike, save in their love for each other. Where your mother was gentle and kind, Emma is hard and unflinching; where your mother preferred to forgive and accept, Emma must always have vengeance."

"Cain-"

"Replacing me before my time, that would be her vengeance," Cain shook his head slowly. "To force me to watch the Pack that I spent all of my life maintaining fall to atavism and ruin. That would be her perfect revenge. For the self-enforced exile of her sister, for Kayla's death from whatever it was in the badlands. Her determination is remarkable; I did not think that she would have tolerated that madman, Sebastian Shaw for so long. Even though she wanted something from him."

Erik had to admit that Cain's words seemed to ring true; altruism or a desire for social change never did seem to be characteristic of Emma Frost. Revenge, however, that was something that he himself could fully understand. "Arctus is of no interest to me," Erik said flatly, "I won't let her - or any of you - use Charles or my children for that end."

"The _dirus_ are a stubborn species," Cain didn't even glance at him. "Although they are rare, I would not have usually approved such a match. No doubt you will have your quarrels."

"All the time," Charles said, with a quick grin, "Usually I find it exhilarating. When I'm in a position to make a reply of my own, at the least."

"Well. You are young yet." The old werewolf sniffed dismissively. "The invitation to return to Arctus remains standing. I wish you well, regardless. The badlands is not a good place to break new territorial grounds - Raven tells me that you have had some problems with hunters."

"We'll get by," Erik said, irritated by Cain's disdain. "Thank _you_ for your concern."

Cain inclined his head, mockingly. "Keep Charles safe, _dirus_. I suspect that Emma may remain on board with you - at least until the venture bores her. Should I pass on before she succeeds, there will be a vacuum of power; and any pure Arctus male should watch his back against his rivals." Cain nodded at the crib, and swept imperiously out of the room.

The timber wolf tilted its head at Charles, then Charles laughed as it padded over to sniff at his hands, unselfconsciously wagging its tail. Patrick, Raven had said, preferred his wolf form; his human form had aged faster, as old werewolves occasionally tended to, and needed a wheelchair. "Thanks for coming," Charles murmured to him, "Are you sure that you wouldn't like to stay for a few days?"

The timber wolf shook his head, with a sidelong and pointed glance at Erik, then he lolled out his tongue in silent laughter and wagged his tail again, nudging Charles affectionately against his neck, and padding away after his mate. Erik closed the door after him, and turned to pull Charles into a rough, bruising kiss; he found that he was still shaking from suppressed temper, and Charles was smiling into his mouth, running his hands up and down his arms, soothingly.

"I can't say that I like your Grandsire," Erik growled, when they broke for air.

"You don't like _anyone_ ," Charles pointed out blithely. "Except maybe me. And the pups. And Nathan."

"Azazel is also tolerable," Erik allowed, and Charles purred as he melted against him, under another kiss, slower this time, Erik's hand weaving into his hair and holding their bodies flush together, hot with a sudden surge of hunger, mouth watering for the taste of Charles' skin, for the pretty moans that he would make when Erik put his mouth between his mate's legs-

The white pup squeaked, and Charles looked back, a most becoming blush edging up to his cheeks, then he laughed and pulled away at the sight of both pups perched with their paws up over the edge of the crib, watching them with innocent curiosity. "We, ah, we need perhaps to make a children's room," Charles murmured, hastily straightening his clothes. "Quite soon," he added, as he looked back over his shoulder, and smiled lazily, his blue eyes half-lidded and inviting as he tracked his gaze downwards.

"You'll still make enough noise for the entire mansion to hear you," Erik shrugged, and grinned when Charles' flush deepened instantly.

"You're unbearable."

postscript 2.

"Pietro and Wandaaa-"

Charles glanced up from the grass just in time to see Wilson bearing down on them. Hastily, he extricated himself from Erik's loose embrace, even as the pups barked in squeaking gasps and looked up at the sound of their names.

"Did you guys miss me? Who's your favorite human? I have a stuffed toy. And a chew toy. And some weird jingly ball, and treats that your parents won't approve of-" Charles chuckled as Wilson started to ramble, pulling out toys in alarmingly lurid hues from his pack as Nathan padded over on a more sedate pace, dusty from travel, sitting down with a yawn at the edge of the stone fountain.

"Good afternoon. Lehnsherr. Xavier."

"Afternoon." Erik didn't move, his arm curled around Charles' waist. "Find anything?"

"Nevada's running a skeleton operation," Nathan said, shaking his head in disgust. "The man's gone to ground; we're nearly out of leads."

"Moira can't be happy about that." Charles absently reached over to confiscate a plastic pack of dog treats that Wilson had produced, setting it aside.

The ex-mercenary was lying on the grass, watching the puppies maul the kevlar of his glove with an expression of almost vapid adoration, but he glanced up briefly when Charles spoke. "Oh yeah. She cursed for about ten minutes and then shot up her stress ball. That lady has anger issues. And then she told us to take some downtime. _She_ needs downtime. Preferably someplace a continent away."

Nathan smiled faintly. "But she's right. And it's been a while since we left Dartmoor."

"So you'll be returning home then?" Charles asked, disappointed; he'd also grown to like both the reserved, one-eyed werewolf and his extremely chatty human companion.

"Oh yeah. Back to gray English rain and the Summers Pack, and their 'Nathan, you know that humans aren't allowed in here', and their 'Nathan, you should spend more time with the others'," Wilson said, with a faint smirk.

"Wade," Nathan said, with a sigh, but Charles frowned, and Erik even leaned up onto his elbows to glance over at him, surprised. "In some ways... Dartmoor is similar to the other Packs," Nathan admitted, reluctantly. "Perhaps worse so, for Wade. He was... a terminal patient. Cancer. And Essex had captured two werewolves, then, myself, and my brother, Stryfe. Essex reserved me for the purposes of studying werewolf regeneration in both forms. My brother Stryfe was used for a blood transfusion, to study the effect that it would have on a human. He did not survive the process. Also," Nathan added, as Erik narrowed his eyes at Wilson, "Wade was reportedly the first and, it seems, the last of the human subjects to survive it in turn... but to Dartmoor, they see only within him a living reminder of their loss."

"A survivor, albeit with recurring nightmares and a touch of minor schizophrenia," Wilson added brightly, though his eyes were carefully blank. "Curing me wasn't what Essex wanted, anyway; the experiment was a failure. The idea was to try and improve my genetic code, somehow. I still get hurt by non-silver stuff, and I heal a little faster, but not by much. Still, my DNA had changed a little, rather than rejecting the blood outright like the other human test subjects, so I was still 'of interest'."

"Why did you betray him?" Erik asked, bluntly. "He cured you."

"I got a little sentimental. I knew that there were two werewolves, and one of them had died for me, so I went to see the other one, just for the hell of it. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, I mean, I didn't even know what to say. I expected some sort of major temper tantrum, tears or something, but hell, it was just some skinny kid, one-eyed, sitting in a cell." Wilson gently scooped up Wanda, who squeaked happily and squirmed in his grip. "He looked at me like he was looking through me, and he said, 'I do not hate you'."

Charles glanced at Nathan, startled, who merely shrugged at him. "It was Essex's doing, not his."

"The kid was funny. Funny and naive as hell. I guess I warmed up to him. The rest of it's history." Wilson said, grinning as Wanda batted at his nose. "He's a bit less funny now, though, and not as skinny as before."

"You could stay here," Erik said, thoughtfully. "We could use the extra hands, and you'd still be in position to head after any Essex leads."

Nathan stared at Erik, as though in surprise, and Wilson hesitated in the middle of picking Pietro up in turn. "I'll speak to my sire," Nathan said, after a cautious pause. "If they could spare me-"

"Yeah, try to play hard to get," Wilson interjected. "Your family's _lovely_ and all, but you've been tired of them treating you like glass for _ages_."

"You can stay too, Wilson," Charles added, with a grin, even as Nathan sighed. "As a live-in babysitter."

"That's it, I'm retiring as your bodyguard," Wilson told Nathan.

postscript 3.

Erik turned over away from the sunlight when it crept over his face, swatting at the wet nose pressed into his flank, then he sat up with a yelp when Charles bit him smartly on his arm, disoriented. "What... Charles?" he blinked when he noticed that Charles was still in wolf form, head cocked to one side, then Erik groaned and leaned back against the headboard. "Don't tell me..."

Charles blurred into the shift, then he was kneeling on the bed, grinning unrepentantly at Erik. "I think you deserved that."

Erik scowled at him. There _had_ been the institution of what Charles had so very primly called a No More Incidents Rule, in their other forms, but a few chasing games last night in the woods for the first time in months had ended up in play-wrestling, and then... Erik already desired Charles in either form, but in the full moon, when Charles was in _heat_... Gritting his teeth, he muttered, "I apologize."

"And the sheets are a _mess_ ," Charles yawned, looking down disapprovingly at the muddy pawprints in their room, running a hand absently into his hair until it stuck out at all angles. "Not to mention the _carpet_ , and... Erik," Charles said dryly, as Erik snorted and dragged him down, rolling over him, "I'm trying to lecture you here... ngh... that's _cheating_!"

Erik ignored him, having edged downwards to take Charles into his mouth, hands curled over Charles' slender hips, sucking roughly with his nose buried in coarse curls, chasing the scent of Charles' musk and the heady edge of pheromones from the full moon, moaning deep in his throat as Charles squirmed and bucked with a wet gasp, thickening in his mouth.

Charles was easy after a full moon; it didn't take long for fingers to twist in his hair, Charles thrusting erratically into his throat, groans turning into a breathless cry as Erik pressed a forefinger into him, chasing the wet slick of the evening before the full moon, and when Charles came deep within Erik's throat he swallowed hungrily with a low moan, throat working greedily around the flesh pressed within it.

When Erik looked back up, licking his lips, Charles stared back, wide-eyed and dazed and deliciously flushed, panting, and he had to swallow a few times before he managed to say, breathlessly, "Don't think that you can use that to get your way out of any argument."

"Seems to work," Erik offered, his voice hoarse, pulling Charles into his lap to rub his arousal against Charles' spent flesh, kissing a hungry path up from the sleek curve of Charles' shoulder to the pulse at his neck, hands kneading the tight flesh of Charles' pretty ass... only for Charles to abruptly wriggle against him, squirming to get free, frowning at the door.

Erik turned to look, and had to swallow a laugh at the sight of two pairs of paws, now about the size of a small dog, wedged under the door. "Charles-"

"Let _go_ of me," Charles hissed, bright red now, "Good _God_ , do you think they _heard_... Erik, I _insist_ -"

"They've probably heard," Erik shrugged. The twins had the room opposite theirs, after all, and they were born with wolf senses. "Don't worry, it's a natural process."

"Jesus _Christ_ , you're all savages!" Charles managed to struggle free, making a quick dash for the bathroom, even as Erik groaned and lay back on the bed, his body soundly and glumly protesting the abrupt lack of Charles as the shower came on.

Charles scowled at him when he emerged, fully dressed, and tossed the forgotten quilt on the floor on top of him before opening the door. "Good morning Wanda, Pietro... Where's your grand-aunt? No... all right, we'll all go down to the dining room for some breakfast. Your father will join us whenever he's presentable to polite society."

Under the quilt, Erik sighed, and rubbed a palm over his face as the footsteps receded pointedly towards the stairway. Some things would never change.

postscript 4.

"You could stay," Charles suggested, on the tarmac, as Azazel and Janus began to load Emma's luggage onto the private jet that Arctus had sent.

"I've heard that Grandsire is beginning to weaken," Emma replied, her bright blue eyes fixed on the horizon, on a commercial craft that was starting to taxi onto a runway. "A power struggle is coming. I must return. Your son, I think, will be unsuitable after all. Perhaps it will prove to be a mercy, since you remain disinterested in taking power."

Charles smiled wryly, his hands pressed into his pockets. Pietro was apparently small for his breed, still, and would probably continue to be so; more importantly, he seemed to defer constantly to his bigger, dire wolf sister, and seemed content to do so. A follower, not a leader - unsuitable for Emma's purposes. "When Grandsire visited us, that time-"

"He told you what he thought about me, did he not?"

"I think that he loves you," Charles told her firmly, "But he's too proud to say so, and you're too proud to reconcile with him, so you'd rather hurt the both of you - and all of your Pack - for the sake of my mother's memory."

"And _I_ think that you're young, and that you have no idea what you are talking about," Emma said, her expression inscrutable, absently adjusting his collar, before turning to address Erik, who was looking at the jet with idle curiosity, shading his eyes against the sun. "I'm still not convinced that you're good for my nephew, but take care of him."

"I don't need you to tell me that," Erik shot back, ignoring Charles' wince.

"Arctus is looking into the matter of the First Sons, independently," Emma told Charles, unruffled, "And your Pack seems of a fair size now that you've taken in those lone wolves. But if you need aid, call us."

"I will." Charles hugged Emma, grinning as she instantly tensed, then he kissed her on both cheeks. "Take care, Emma. You'll be happier," he added, with a quick, hopeful smile, "If you learned to let things go."

"Listen to yourself, child," Emma replied, brushing a kiss over his forehead, then turning to ascend the stair into the jet. Raven poked her head out briefly, to wave quickly at them, then Charles and Erik had to retreat over to the car as the plane's engines started up.

Leaning against the warm bonnet, arms folded, Charles checked around briefly for witnesses before reaching over to thread his fingers with Erik's, hiding the gesture in the shadow between their bodies, biting down on a smile as Erik wordlessly squeezed his palm, watching as the jet circled ponderously towards a runway, edging into position, and then abruptly speeding up and eventually ascending into the sky.

Erik gave Charles' hand a last squeeze, and pushed away from the car, striding around to the driver's side. "We have a meeting with Moira at the mansion in an hour or so, about those suspected werewolf sightings around Alkali Lake. I suspect that it's a waste of time, but she's insisted."

"All right." Charles let himself into the front passenger seat, and as Erik started up the car, he leaned over to splay a palm over Erik's thigh. Behind them, the jet rose higher, upward, until it faded out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading and their support! I hope this thoroughly satisfies everyone's not!mpreg kink for this 'verse, because I don't think Charles wants to go through that again. ^^;;


End file.
